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NEW    LIGHT    ON    THE 
LIFE    OF    JESUS 


NEW    LIGHT    ON    THE 
LIFE   OF   JESUS 


BY 


CHARLES   AUGUSTUS   BRIGGS,   D.D.,   D.Lrrr. 

Edward  Robinson  Professor  of  Biblical  Theology 
The  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1904 


1VH3N38 


Copyright,  1904 
BY   CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,    February,    1904 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


TO 

DAVID    R.    FRAZER,    D.D. 

PASTOR 
OF    THE    FIRST    PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH 

NEWARK,    NEW    JERSEY 
CLASSMATE    AND    LIFE-LONG    FRIEND 


665 


PREFACE 

THIS  volume  does  not  propose  to  give  a 
new  life  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour ;  but 
to  give  a  new  light  upon  the  life  of  our  Lord 
which  has  come  to  the  author  in  his  recent 
studies.  In  the  term  1861-62  of  the  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  it  was  my  privilege  to 
study  with  my  classmates  the  Greek  Harmony 
of  the  Gospels  under  the  greatest  of  American 
Biblical  scholars,  Edward  Robinson.  An  entire 
year  was  given  to  this  study  at  that  time.  Sub- 
sequently in  1867  and  1868  I  renewed  this 
study,  but  from  a  more  historical  point  of  view, 
at  the  University  of  Berlin,  under  the  guidance 
of  one  of  the  greatest  theologians  of  the  past  cen- 
tury, Isaac  Dorner.  I  then  reviewed  the  entire 
literature  of  the  Life  of  Jesus  in  those  troublous 
times  which  were  dominated  by  the  negative 
criticism  of  Strauss,  Baur,  Renan,  Schenkel,  and 
Keim.  As  a  result  of  these  studies  I  made  a 
revision  of  Robinson's  Harmony  for  my  private 


viii  PREFACE 

use.  My  studies  for  many  years,  from  1874- 
1891  were  concentrated  upon  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, because  I  was  called  to  use  my  utmost 
endeavors'  in  battling  for  the  rights  of  the 
Higher  Criticism  and  in  the  work  of  reconstruct- 
ing the  Old  Testament  material  in  the  light  of 
that  Criticism.  In  1891  when  I  was  transferred 
from  the  Hebrew  chair  to  the  new  chair  of 
Biblical  Theology,  it  was  necessary  for  me  to 
renew  my  New  Testament  studies  and  to  con- 
centrate my  attention  upon  them.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  I  should  apply  the  same  rigorous 
methods  of  Criticism  to  the  New  Testament 
that  I  had  applied  for  many  years  to  the  Old 
Testament.  I  had  the  advantage  of  coming  to 
the  New  Testament  afresh  from  studies  in  the 
Hebrew  and  Aramaic  Scriptures,  and  so  was 
prepared  to  investigate  and  discern  the  Sem- 
itic originals  at  the  basis  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

The  Harmony  of  Robinson  was  based  on  the 
chronological  order  of  the  Gospel  of  John.  This 
order  I  abandoned  many  years  ago.  But  it  was 
only  gradually  that  my  confidence  in  the  chrono- 
logical order  of  Mark  was  weakened.  One  of 
these  pre-suppositions,  or  both,  are  at  the  basis 
of  the  Harmonies  of  the  Gospels  and  Lives  of 


PREFACE  ix 

Jesus  of  modern  times.  So  soon  as  these  pre- 
suppositions were  abandoned,  and  I  felt  as  free 
to  study  the  whole  material  as  Tatian,  the  earli- 
est harmonist,  did,  a  cloud  was  lifted  from  the 
Gospels  and  a  number  of  questions  sprang  up 
which  pressed  for  a  solution.  The  most  essential 
of  these  were : 

1.  When  did  Jesus  begin  His  Ministry  ? 
2.  Where  was  Jesus  during  the  absence  of  the 
Twelve?  The  answer  to  these  two  questions 
which  came  to  me  flooded  the  Gospels  with  new 
light.  I  saw  that  there  was  a  Galilean  Ministry 
of  Jesus  prior  to  the  arrest  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist, and  that  while  five  pairs  of  the  Twelve 
were  absent  on  a  Mission  in  Galilee,  Jesus  with 
James  and  John,  one  pair  of  the  Twelve,  was 
carrying  on  His  ministry  in  Jerusalem,  and  at 
intervals  with  another  pair,  Thomas  and  Mat- 
thew, in  Perasa ;  and  so  the  order  of  the  ministry 
became  altogether  different  from  that  pre-sup- 
posed  in  the  modern  Harmonies  and  Lives  of 
Jesus. 

At  first  the  result  was  startling,  but  I  was 
encouraged  by  finding  that  my  results  were  in 
many  respects  in  accord  with  that  ancient  har- 
monist, Tatian,  and  by  recalling  that  the  ordinary 
arrangement  of  the  Life  of  Jesus  is  indeed  quite 


x  PREFACE 

modern.  It  was  not,  however,  until  I  began  to 
trace  the  consequences  of  this  new  arrangement 
of  the  ministry  in  all  its  details,  and  I  saw  the 
material  of  the  Gospels  take  its  place  with  so 
much  ease,  so  much  propriety,  and  with  such 
simplicity  and  beautiful  harmony,  that  I  was 
convinced  that  the  essential  problems  of  the 
Gospels  had  been  solved. 

Ten  years  ago  I  said :  "We  would  prefer 
some  chronological  scheme.  But  such  a  chrono- 
logical scheme  is  sufficiently  difficult  in  the 
study  of  the  life  of  the  Messiah.  It  is  still  more 
difficult  when  we  have  to  put  His  discourses  in 
their  historical  relations.  Any  attempt  to  do 
this  burdens  us  with  numberless  questions  of 
historical  criticism  where  it  is  impossible  at  pres- 
ent to  attain  definite  results  in  some  of  the 
most  important  passages.  Many  attempts  have 
been  made  to  trace  a  development  in  the  Mes- 
sianic consciousness  of  Jesus,  and  in  His  doctrine 
of  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  none  of  these  has 
found  favor.  It  seems  impracticable  in  the 
present  stage  of  the  criticism  of  the  Gospels  to 
give  an  accurate  and  comprehensive  statement  of 
such  a  development.  It  is  sufficiently  difficult 
if  the  study  is  limited  to  the  Synoptics.  It  is  at 
present  impossible  if  the  Gospel  of  John  is  in- 


PREFACE  xi 

eluded  in  the  study."  (Messiah  of  the  Gospels, 
pp.  72-73.) 

But  now  I  have  arranged  the  Life  of  Jesus  in 
a  simple  and  orderly  chronological  scheme.  I 
have  also  traced  the  Messianic  idea  from  its 
origin  in  a  historical  situation,  in  its  development 
in  accordance  with  historical  circumstances,  even 
to  its  climax.  I  have  also  traced  in  a  volume 
soon  to  be  published  an  orderly  development  in 
the  entire  Ethical  Teaching  of  Jesus. 

This  new  light  solves  most  of  the  difficult 
problems  of  the  Gospels,  fills  up  the  chasm  be- 
tween the  Synoptists  and  the  Gospel  of  John, 
and  satisfies  the  most  searching  inquiries  of 
modern  Higher  Criticism  and  Historical  Criti- 
cism. I  have  subjected  these  results  to  the 
most  careful  criticism  that  I  could  apply  to  my 
own  work,  again  and  again.  It  may  be  that  I 
have  myself  been  to  some  extent  blinded  by  the 
new  light.  If  so  I  shall  be  glad  to  be  corrected. 
The  book  must  go  into  the  fires  of  criticism,  the 
hotter  the  better.  If  the  light  is  a  true  light  it 
will  abide.  The  question  is  submitted  with 
confidence  to  Christian  scholars  and  to  the 
Christian  public. 

The  references  to  the  author's  previous  works 
are  given  without  mention  of  his  name.  He 


xii  PREFACE 

has  avoided  discussions  of  the  opinions  of  other 
scholars,  not  because  he  undervalues  them  but 
to  make  the  volume  as  untechnical  as  possible 
and  to  set  forth  distinctly  the  new  view  he  pro- 
poses. 

Chapters  I.,  III.,  and  IV.  were  printed  as  arti- 
cles in  the  Expository  Times,  September,  Octo- 
ber, and  November,  1903,  and  are  reprinted  with 
few  additions. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I.  WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  His  MINISTRY?  ...        1 
II.  JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST 17 

III.  THE  TWELVE  AND  THE  SEVENTY 31 

IV.  WHERE  WAS  JESUS  DURING  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE 

TWELVE  ? 40 

V.     HOW       MANY       AND       WHAT       FEASTS       DID      JESUS 

ATTEND  ? 50 

VI.  THE  PER^EAN  MINISTRY 64 

VII.    JESUS    AND    THE    PHARISEES 79 

VIII.   WHEN    DID  JESUS  FIRST  DECLARE   HIS  MESSIAH- 
SHIP  ?   91 

IX.  THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  IN  PASSION  WEEK    .     .101 
X.  THE  FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS    .     .     .110 

XI.  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM 125 

XII.  THE  COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN  .     .140 

XIII.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  INFANCY 159 

XIV.  OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 167 


INDEX  .  193 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF 
JESUS 


WHEN   DID  JESUS   BEGIN   HIS   MINISTRY? 

ONE  of  the  most  difficult  questions  con- 
nected with  the  early  ministry  of  Jesus 
is :  when  Jesus  began  His  ministry.  The  four 
Gospels  differ  in  their  statements.  According 
to  the  Gospel  of  Mark  "after  that  John  was 
delivered  up,  Jesus  came  into  Galilee,  preaching 
the  gospel  of  God,  and  saying,  The  time  is  ful- 
filled, and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand:  repent 
ye,  and  believe  in  the  gospel." 1  It  is  a  sure  result 
of  the  modern  criticism  of  the  Gospels,  that  the 
Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke  used  Mark  as  a 
source,  but  with  freedom,  usually  condensing, 
but  sometimes  enlarging  and  explaining.  In 
Matthew  we  find :  "Now  when  he  heard  that 
John  was  delivered  up,  he  withdrew  into  Galilee  ; 


1  Marki.  14,  15. 


2  NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

[and  leaving  Nazareth,  he  came  and  dwelt  in 
Capernaum,  which  is  by  the  sea,  in  the  borders  of 
Zebulun  and  Naphtali :  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  by  Isaiah.  .  .  .]  From 
that  time  began  Jesus  to  preach,  and  to  say, 
Repent  ye;  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand."1  It  is  evident  that  all  the  material  in 
brackets 2  is  an  addition  to  the  source.  The 
other  verses  give  essentially  the  same  as  Mark, 
but  with  important  modifications,  which  we 
shall  consider  later  on.  Luke  tells  us :  "  And 
Jesus  returned  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit  into 
Galilee:  [and  a  fame  went  out  concerning  him 
through  all  the  region  round  about.  And  he 
taught  in  their  synagogues,  being  glorified  of 
all. "]  3  It  is  evident  that  the  bracketed  material 4 
is  an  addition  to  the  source,  and  that  while  the 
phrase  "  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit "  is  unique,  the 
reference  to  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  is  charac- 
teristically Lukan,  and  is  original  with  this  Gos- 
pel. There  remains,  therefore,  as  derived  from 
the  Markan  source,  only  "and  Jesus  returned  into 
Galilee  "  ;  the  reference  to  the  arrest  of  John  the 
Baptist  being  omitted  altogether.  Luke  is  com- 


1  Matt.  iv.  12-17.  3  Verses  13-16. 

3  Luke  iv.  14,  15.  *  Verses  14b.  15. 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY?      3 

monly  recognized  to  be  the  best  historian  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  writer  from  whom  we 
would  expect  historical  data  more  than  from  any 
other.  It  is  contrary  to  this  characteristic  that 
he  should  omit  such  a  definite  statement  as  that 
given  in  Mark  with  reference  to  John  the  Bap- 
tist, if  he  regarded  it  as  a  correct  historical  state- 
ment. We  are  compelled  to  the  opinion  that 
Luke  did  not  think  the  ministry  of  Jesus  in 
Galilee  began  subsequent  to  the  arrest  of  John 
the  Baptist.  In  this  he  is  sustained  by  the 
Gospel  of  John,1  which  gives  a  ministry  of  Jesus 
in  Galilee  and  Judaea  prior  to  the  arrest  of  John, 
and  gives  another  motive  for  departing  into 
Galilee  a  second  time.  This  is  the  statement : 
"  When  therefore  the  Lord  knew  how  that  the 
Pharisees  had  heard  that  Jesus  was  making  and 
baptizing  more  disciples  than  John,  .  .  .  he 
left  Judcea,  and  departed  again  into  Galilee? 

On  the  surface  of  the  statements  of  the  Gos- 
pels there  are  grave  discrepancies  in  which  Mark 
and  Matthew,  on  the  one  side,  seem  to  date  the 
beginning  of  the  Galilean  ministry  subsequent  to 
the  arrest  of  the  Baptist,  while  Luke  and  John 
do  not ;  the  latter  asserting  a  ministry  in  Galilee 


1  John  2,  3.  2  John  iv,  1-3. 


4  NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

prior  to  that  event.  Those  harmonists  who 
regard  the  Gospel  of  John  as  unhistorical,  build 
on  the  statement  of  Mark  and  make  the  Galilean 
ministry  begin  in  fact  after  the  arrest  of  the 
Baptist,  without  giving  the  silence  of  Luke  its 
due  value.  Those  who  accept  the  historicity  of 
the  Gospel  of  John  endeavor  to  arrange  an 
earlier  Galilean  ministry,  so  far  as  the  statements 
of  that  Gospel  are  concerned ;  but  put  all  the 
Synoptic  material  subsequent  to  the  arrest  of 
the  Baptist.  This  does  not,  however,  escape  the 
difficulty,  but  only  makes  the  discrepancy  more 
glaring.  If  we  build  on  the  statement  of  Luke, 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  put  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  the  Synoptic  material  before 
the  arrest  of  the  Baptist.  If  the  statement  of 
Mark  is  invalid  as  to  the  ministry  reported  by 
the  Gospel  of  John,  it  is  no  less  invalid  as  to  the 
Galilean  ministry  of  Luke's  report,  and  should  be 
no  barrier  to  the  consideration  of  any  evidence 
that  may  lead  to  a  larger  Galilean  ministry  before 
the  arrest  of  the  Baptist,  even  to  the  inclusion  of 
a  considerable  amount  of  material  given  by  Mark 
himself  subsequent  to  his  statement.  It  has 
been  a  serious  mistake  to  make  this  statement  of 
Mark  the  key  to  the  early  ministry  of  our  Lord. 
It  is  impossible  to  make  any  satisfactory  har- 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY?      5 

mony  of  the  Gospels  on  that  basis.  It  is  much 
safer  to  build  on  the  statement  of  Luke. 

There  are  several  possible  explanations  of  the 
relation  of  Luke's  statement  to  that  of  Mark. 
The  statement  of  Mark  was  before  Luke  in  its 
present  form,  and  he  either  (1)  rejected  it  as  un- 
historical,  or  (2)  interpreted  it  as  not  referring 
to  the  real  beginning  of  the  Galilean  ministry. 
(3)  Having  related  the  arrest  of  John,1  he  saw 
no  reason  to  refer  to  it  again  here.  (4)  The 
statement  of  Mark  in  its  present  form  is  not  that 
of  the  original  Mark  which  Luke  used,  but  the 
reference  to  the  Baptist  is  one  of  the  additions 
made  to  the  primitive  Gospel.  We  shall  con- 
sider these  in  the  inverse  order. 

It  is  recognized  by  all  critics  that  the  Greek 
canonical  Mark  has  some  material  which  was 
not  in  the  original  Mark  at  the  basis  of  the  Gos- 
pels. How  much  this  material  may  be,  and 
what  in  particular  may  be  regarded  as  additional, 
depends  upon  careful  criticism.  Certainly  there 
is  no  evidence  that  Luke  had  this  statement  as 
to  John  the  Baptist  before  him,  or  that  the 
author  of  the  Gospel  of  John  knew  of  it.  Did 
Matthew's  Gospel  build  on  the  present  text  of 


Luke  iii.  19. 


6  NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Mark  ?  This  is  possible,  but  by  no  means  cer- 
tain. It  is  difficult  to  see  why  Matthew  should 
change  the  statement  of  the  fact  in  Mark  to  the 
hearing  about  it.  The  structure  of  the  sentence 
is  quite  different  in  Matthew  from  Mark,  al- 
though, apart  from  the  addition  of  hearing,  both 
might  be  regarded  as  translations  of  a  common 
Hebrew  original.  It  is  altogether  probable  that 
"  the  gospel  of  God"  and  "  and  believe  in  the  gos- 
pel "  of  Mark  are  additions  to  the  original  Mark. 
They  are  not  in  Matthew.  The  original  Gospel 
gave  only  "preaching  and  saying,  The  kingdom 
of  God  is  at  hand:  repent  ye"  Resch  thinks 
that  the  previous  clause,  "the  time  is  fulfilled," 
was  there  also.  That  is  quite  possible.  In  any 
case,  the  Greek  Mark  has  at  least  two  clauses  of 
additions  to  the  original  Hebrew  Gospel,  and  if 
so,1  why  not  also  in  the  reference  to  John's  ar- 
rest? The  most  that  can  be  said  therefore  is 
that  it  is  not  certain  whether  the  clause,  "  after 
that  John  was  delivered  up"  was  in  the  original 
Mark  or  not. 

If  it  were  in  the  original  Mark  how  could 
Luke  the  historian  destroy  its  historical  impor- 
tance by  omitting  it  here  and  giving  the  arrest  of 


Marki.  14b,  15. 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY?      7 

John  a  topical  order  in  the  previous  chapter  ? 
The  question  then  remains,  was  it  designed  to 
state  the  actual  beginning  of  the  Galilean  minis- 
try, and  if  so,  was  it  so  understood  by  Luke? 
The  statement  is  in  the  protasis  of  a  temporal 
clause,  whose  apodosis  is  a  general  statement  as 
to  the  substance  of  the  preaching  of  Jesus  in 
Galilee,  namely,  the  proclamation  of  the  advent 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  call  to  repent- 
ance, which  was  also  essentially  the  message  of 
the  Baptist.  This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that 
after  the  arrest  of  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus  went 
into  Galilee  to  preach  the  same  message  that  the 
Baptist  had  preached.  It  does  not  necessarily 
imply  that  Jesus  did  not  teach  or  work  miracles 
before  the  arrest  of  John,  unless  we  suppose  that 
this  was  designed  as  a  comprehensive  statement 
of  His  entire  work.  But  that  opinion  cannot  be 
sustained.  The  statement  might  be  interpreted 
as  a  general  introductory  statement  with  refer- 
ence to  His  ministry  in  Galilee  as  a  whole,  with- 
out the  necessary  implication  that  all  the  events 
mentioned  subsequently,  even  in  Mark,  actually 
followed  the  arrest  of  the  Baptist ;  unless  we  in- 
sist upon  strict  chronological  order  for  all  the 
material  of  this  Gospel.  But  the  modern  view, 
that  the  order  of  Mark  is  the  norm  for  the  life  of 


8  NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Jesus,  has  been  so  shattered  by  recent  criticism, 
that  it  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  a  decisive 
test  in  any  question.  In  fact,  none  of  the  Gos- 
pels can  be  relied  upon  for  chronological  order. 
They  are  all  dominated  by  didactic  considera- 
tions, which  make  the  topical  order  prevail  over 
the  chronological.  The  ambiguity  of  the  sen- 
tence in  Mark  involving  the  possibility  that  it 
might  be  interpreted  as  making  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  in  Galilee  begin  with  the  arrest  of  the 
Baptist,  would  be  a  sufficient  motive  for  Luke 
to  omit  it. 

Matthew's  statement  is :  "  From  that  time  (de- 
fined not  only  by  the  arrest  of  the  Baptist  and 
Jesus'  withdrawal  to  Galilee,  but  also  by  the 
leaving  Nazareth  to  dwell  in  Capernaum)  began 
Jesus  to  preach,  and  to  say,  Repent  ye  ;  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  This  represents 
that  there  was  a  real  beginning,  not  simply  with 
the  arrest  of  the  Baptist,  but  in  connection  with 
this  removal  to  Capernaum  after  the  arrest  of  the 
Baptist.  If  we  could  distinguish  between  the 
ministry  of  preaching  the  kingdom  and  an  earlier 
ministry  of  teaching  and  miracle-working,  then 
this  would  be  a  second  stage  in  the  Galilean 
ministry  of  Jesus,  wrhich  would  by  no  means 
exclude  an  earlier  ministry  of  a  simpler  kind. 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY  f       9 

There  are  reasons  for  regarding  this  distinction 
as  in  a  measure  correct,  although  it  is  not  clear 
in  fact  to  any  of  the  evangelists.  Prior  to  the 
death  of  the  Baptist,  Jesus  naturally  was  in  his 
shadow.  The  Baptist  was  in  the  public  eye  the 
principal ;  Jesus  appeared  rather  as  his  most 
prominent  disciple.  It  might  well  be,  therefore, 
that  Mark,  and  even  his  authority,  Peter,  con- 
ceived of  the  earlier  ministry  of  Jesus  as  intro- 
ductory and  relatively  unimportant,  and  that 
His  own  real  independent  ministry  began  after 
the  death  of  the  Baptist.  At  all  events,  there 
is  a  dilemma,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  for  those  who 
regard  the  statements  of  John  2-3  as  historical. 
They  must  either  give  these  statements  of  Mark 
some  such  explanation  as  those  suggested  above, 
or  else  regard  the  reference  to  the  arrest  of  John 
in  this  connection  as  unhistorical.  We  should 
not  shrink  from  this  latter  alternative,  if  the 
other  could  not  be  sustained.1 

The  story  of  Luke  is  intrinsically  most  proba- 
ble.    The  baptism  by  the  Divine  Spirit  was  im- 


1  It  is  noteworthy  that  Tatian,  the  earliest  harmonist  of 
the  Gospels,  does  not  hesitate  to  ignore  this  statement  of 
Mark.  This  fact  had  escaped  my  attention  until  after  I  had 
made  up  my  mind  on  the  subject.  I  was  gratified  to  be  sus- 
tained by  so  early  and  so  great  an  authority. 


10         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

mediately  followed  by  an  ecstatic  condition  of 
fasting  in  the  wilderness,  at  the  conclusion  of 
which  Jesus  endures  the  great  temptation.  Re- 
turning from  the  wilderness,  He  goes  under  the 
power  of  the  Spirit  to  undertake  His  ministry  in 
Galilee. 

The  statements  of  the  Gospel  of  John  are  en- 
tirely harmonious  with  this.  It  was  natural  that 
on  His  way  to  Galilee  He  should  stop  at  the  Jor- 
dan side  to  revisit  the  one  who  had  baptized  Him 
and  given  Him  the  anointing  for  His  ministry. 

The  recognition  of  His  Messiahship  by  the 
Baptist,  and  the  transfer  of  two  of  his  disciples, 
Andrew  and  probably  John,  to  Jesus,  and  the 
call  of  Philip  the  next  day,  are  altogether  in 
place.  With  these  three  disciples  He  attends  a 
marriage  feast  at  Cana  of  Galilee  on  the  third 
day  afterward,  and  then  goes  down  to  Caper- 
naum.1 The  naming  of  Peter2  and  the  call  of 
Nathanael3  were  evidently  inserted  for  topical 
reasons.  They  belong  to  a  much  later  date,  as 
I  have  shown  elsewhere.4 


1  John  i.  29-ii.  12.  '  John  i.  41,  42. 

*  John  i.  45-51. 

4  General  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Holy  Scripture,  pp. 
514  seq.  The  Apostolic  Commission,  Art.  i.  in  Studies  in  Honor 
of  B.  L.  GildersJeeve. 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY?     11 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  material  of  the 
Galilean  ministry  given  by  the  Synoptists  subse- 
quent to  the  statements  considered  above.  So 
far  as  Luke  is  concerned,  there  is  no  reason  why 
all  of  this  should  be  subsequent  to  the  arrest  of 
the  Baptist.  We  have  seen  that  the  statements 
of  Mark  and  Matthew  should  not  compel  us  to 
that  opinion.  Luke  gives  first  of  all  in  the  Gal- 
ilean ministry  Jesus'  rejection  at  Nazareth.1  But 
this  is  only  a  variation  of  the  story  of  His  rejec- 
tion given  in  Mark  and  Matthew2  at  a  much 
later  date.  Jesus  could  not  have  challenged  His 
townsmen  to  accept  Him  as  Messiah  so  early  in 
His  ministry.  Luke  placed  this  crisis  at  Naza- 
reth at  the  beginning  of  the  Galilean  ministry  for 
topical  reasons.  We  should  not  hesitate  to  place 
it  later,  as  do  Mark  and  Matthew. 

The  call  of  the  four  fishermen  comes  first  in 
Mark,3  and  it  fits  on  appropriately  to  the  calls 
mentioned  in  John.  This  is  followed  by  the 
Sabbath  day  in  Capernaum,4  and  a  tour  of  teach- 
ing and  miracle-working  in  Galilee.5  The  Syn- 
optists differ  slightly  in  the  order  of  these  events. 


1  Luke  iv.  16-30.          '  Mark  vi.  l-6a.;  Matt.  xiii.  54-58. 

3  Mark  i.  16-20;  Matt.  iv.  18-22;  Luke  v.  1-11. 

4  Mark  i.  21-34;  Matt.  viii.  14-17;  Luke  iv.  31-41. 

6  Mark  i.  35-45;  Matt.  iv.  23,  viii.  1-4;  Luke  iv.  42-v.  16. 


12         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

But  all  give  them  at  this  time.  Then  comes  a 
second  Sabbath  in  Capernaum.1  This  is  followed 
by  the  call  of  Matthew,  making  the  sixth  disci- 
ple.2 All  this  material  seems  to  belong  to  the 
earlier  Galilean  ministry,  before  the  arrest  of  the 
Baptist. 

The  next  item  in  the  Synoptists 3  is  of  some 
importance,  because  it  is  related  in  some  way  to 
the  narrative  of  John.4  The  words  of  Jesus  ad- 
dressed to  the  disciples  of  the  Baptist  with  refer- 
ence to  fasting  are :  "  Can  the  sons  of  the  bride- 
chamber  fast,  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ? 
as  long  as  they  have  the  bridegroom  with  them, 
they  cannot  fast.  Hut  the  days  will  come,  when 
the  bridegroom  shall  be  taken  away  from  them, 
and  then  will  they  fast  in  that  day. " 5  These  words 
seem  to  imply  the  word  of  the  Baptist  himself : 
"  He  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom :  but 
the  friend  of  the  bridegroom,  which  standeth  and 
heareth  him,  rejoiceth  greatly  because  of  the  bride- 
grooms voice :  this  my  joy  therefore  is  fulfilled. 
He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease." 6 

Jesus  justifies  Himself  and  His  disciples  over 


1  Mark  ii.  1-12;  Matt.  ix.  1-8;  Luke  v.  17-26. 

2  Mark  ii.  13-17;  Matt.  ix.  9-13;  Luke  v.  27-32. 

3  Mark  ii.  18^22;  Matt.  ix.  14-17;  Luke  v.  33-39. 

4  John  iii.  22-30.        5  Mark  ii.  19,  20.        *  John  iii.  29,  30. 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY?     13 

against  the  disciples  of  the  Baptist  by  using  the 
very  figure  of  speech  with  reference  to  Himself 
that  the  Baptist  had  used.  The  discussion  be- 
tween the  disciples  of  Jesus  and  the  disciples  of 
the  Baptist  as  to  fasting  implies  the  same  essen- 
tial situation  as  the  discussion  as  to  purifying. 
Both  imply  that  Jesus  was  followed  by  disciples. 
The  disciples  present  at  this  time 1  can  hardly  be 
explained,  unless  we  suppose  that  at  least  several 
had  been  previously  called.  It  seems  altogether 
probable,  therefore,  that  Jesus  soon  after  the 
call  of  Matthew  departed  from  Galilee  to  Ju- 
dsea,  and  came  into  connection  with  the  Baptist 
again,2  and  that  in  the  same  region  the  discus- 
sion about  fasting  took  place,  as  well  as  that 
about  purification. 

The  next  incident  given  by  Mark 3  and  by 
Luke,4  although  given  by  Matthew  at  a  later 
date,5  is  doubtless  in  its  place  in  Mark.  It  gives 
additional  evidence  of  great  importance.  The 
disciples  on  a  sabbath  day,  passing  through  the 
fields  of  ripe  grain,  pluck  some  of  the  ears  and 
rub  out  the  grains  and  eat  them.  The  ripe  grain 
was  still  uncut.  Leviticus  6  gives  the  law  that 

1  John  iii.  22.  2  John  iii.  22-36. 

8  Mark  ii.  23-28.  *  Luke  vi.  1-5. 

5  Matt.  xii.  1-8.  6  Lev.  xxiii.  5-15. 


14         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  first-fruits  of  the  barley  harvest  must  be  pre- 
sented as  an  Omer  offering  on  the  morrow  after 
the  first  great  sabbath,  that  is,  on  the  second 
day  of  unleavened  bread.  Prior  to  this  it  was 
unlawful  to  cut  the  grain  or  to  eat  of  it.  "And 
ye  shall  eat  neither  bread,  nor  parched  corn,  nor 
fresh  ears,  until  this  self -same  day."1  The  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  would  certainly  obey  this  law, 
however  far  they  may  have  been  from  the  Phari- 
saic excesses  in  holding  that  rubbing  grain  on 
the  hands  was  labor,  and  so  a  violation  of  the 
sabbath.  The  wheat  harvest  was  two  or  three 
weeks  later.  We  must  therefore  conclude  that 
this  incident  was  subsequent  to  the  Passover, 
and  not  distant  from  it.  In  the  text  of  Luke, 
cV  o-a/3/3aTo>  is  followed  in  most  early  codices  I 
by  SevTepoTrpa>T(p,  and  this  is  accepted  by  Tisch- 
endorf  and  most  critical  authorities,  although  re- 
jected by  Westcott  and  Hort.  Weiss,3  and  many 
others.  It  is  a  difficult  reading,  whose  omis- 
sion is  easier  to  explain  than  its  insertion. 
Whether  it  was  original  or  a  later  explanatory 
addition,  it  is  still  important  because  it  defines 
that  sabbath.  It  seems  to  be  the  sabbath  after 


1  Lev.  xxiii.  14.  s  A  C  D  E  H  K,  etc. 

3  These  follow  too  closely  B  K. 


WHEN  DID  JESUS  BEGIN  HIS  MINISTRY?     15 

the  Omer  offering,  and  therefore  Jesus  and  His 
disciples  were  on  their  way  from  Jerusalem  to 
Galilee,  having  just  left  Jerusalem  immediately 
after  the  conclusion  of  Passover.  If  this  be  so, 
then  all  the  events  thus  far  considered,  except 
the  last,  were  prior  to  the  first  Passover  which 
Jesus  spent  with  His  disciples  in  Jerusalem. 
This  second  return  to  Galilee  would  then  cor- 
respond with  that  mentioned  in  John  *  the  mo- 
tive of  which  was  the  opposition  of  the  Pharisees 
of  Judsea,  due  to  the  wonderful  success  of  Jesus 
in  winning  disciples  even  beyond  that  of  the 
Baptist.  Jesus,  for  prudential  reasons,  would 
avoid  a  premature  conflict  with  the  Pharisees 
of  Jerusalem.  There  is  no  sufficient  reason  to 
doubt  this  statement,  although  it  is  prefixed  to 
the  story  of  the  journey  through  Samaria,  which 
must  be  assigned  to  a  much  later  time  in  the 
life  of  Jesus.2 

The  Gospel  of  John  does  not  mention  the 
arrest  of  the  Baptist  at  this  stage,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  it  had  not  yet  happened  when  Jesus 
departed  for  Galilee,  but  that  it  occurred  so  soon 
afterward  that  it  might  be  assigned  by  Matthew 
and  Mark  as  a  motive  for  the  beginning  of  the 


1  John  iv.  1-3.  2  See  p.  45. 


16         NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESVS 

preaching  of  the  repentance  and  the  near  advent 
of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

If  now  we  look  back  over  the  incidents  thus 
far  considered  as  prior  to  this,  the  first  Passover 
of  Jesus'  ministry,  we  may  conclude  that  the  first 
meeting  of  Jesus  with  the  Baptist  was  due  to 
His  journey  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem  to  keep 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  and  that  it  was  on  His 
return  from  this  feast  that  He  went  alone  to  the 
Baptist  to  be  baptized  by  him  in  the  Jordan. 
The  first  stage  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  there- 
fore, was  between  Tabernacles  and  Passover,  and 
this  first  Passover  spent  by  Jesus  and  His  disci- 
ples in  Jerusalem  marks  essentially  the  boundary 
between  the  preparatory  work  of  the  Baptist  and 
the  ministry  of  Jesus.  The  work  of  Jesus  up 
to  this  time  was  a  preparatory  work  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Baptist,  and  therefore  not  consid- 
ered by  Mark  and  his  authority,  St.  Peter,  as  the 
real  beginning  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus. 


II 

JESUS   AND   JOHN   THE   BAPTIST 

\  CCORDING  to  Luke,  Jesus  and  John  the 
-^V.  Baptist  were  near  relations  through  their 
mothers,  Mary  and  Elizabeth.  Although  Eliza- 
beth brought  up  her  son  in  a  city  in  the  hill 
country  of  Judah,  and  Jesus  was  brought  up  in 
the  distant  Nazareth  of  Galilee,  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  other  visits  were  made  by  Mary  to 
Elizabeth  than  that  reported  in  Luke ;  and  that 
at  such  visits  Jesus  and  John  became  acquaint- 
ed as  boys.  The  statement  of  Luke,1  that  the 
residence  of  Elizabeth  was  in  a  city  of  Judah  in 
the  hill  country,  is  too  indefinite  to  be  accurate. 
The  conjecture  of  Reland  supported  by  Robin- 
son, that  Judah  stands  for  Juttah,  a  city  of  the 
priests  south  of  Hebron,2  is  probably  correct. 
Moreover,  Zacharias  must  have  attended  the 
feasts  at  Jerusalem  with  his  family,  and  twice  in 
the  year  he  served  there  in  his  course  as  priest  in 
the  temple.  The  visits  of  Jesus  with  His  par- 


1  Luke  i.  39.  f  Josh.  xv.  55,  xxi.  16. 


18         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

ents  to  the  feasts  gave  frequent  opportunity  for 
renewing  the  acquaintance  of  Jesus  and  John 
during  the  eighteen  years  subsequent  to  Jesus' 
first  visit  to  Jerusalem  prior  to  the  beginning  of 
His  ministry.  It  is  true  that  John  the  Baptist 
is  reported  as  saying  :  "  /  knew  him  not ; " * 
but  the  context  indicates  that  this  knowledge 
was  not  that  of  personal  acquaintance,  but  of 
recognition  of  His  special  calling  as  Messiah. 

Jesus  and  the  Baptist  first  came  into  contact 
in  a  public  way  when  Jesus  went  to  him  for 
baptism.  At  this  time  John,  guided  by  the  the- 
ophany  which  he  received,  recognizes  Jesus  as 
the  One  greater  than  himself  whom  he  had 
heralded.2 

Jesus  immediately  after  His  Baptism  goes 
for  forty  days,  in  the  ecstatic  state,  into  the  wil- 
derness, and  undergoes  His  temptation;3  after 
which  He  visits  the  Baptist  on  His  way  to  Gali- 
lee and  is  recognized  by  him  as  his  Master.  Two 
of  the  Baptist's  disciples  join  Jesus  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  and  on  the  third  day  Jesus  returns 
to  Galilee.4 

The  next  meeting  of  John  and  Jesus  was  at 


1  John  i.  31.  3  John  i.  32-34. 

8  Mark  i.  12,  13.  *  John  i.  29-43. 


JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  19 

^Enon,  near  Salim,  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan. 
Jesus  in  the  meantime  had  gathered  about  Him 
a  band  of  disciples.  Jesus  and  these  disciples 
teach,  make  disciples,  and  baptize  alongside  of 
John  and  his  disciples.  The  disciples  of  the 
Baptist  were  disturbed  by  this  apparent  rivalry 
all  the  more  that  Jesus'  success  was  greater  than 
that  of  their  master.1  Accordingly  disputes 
arose  respecting  purifications2  and  fasting.3  But 
the  Baptist  distinctly  recognized  and  stated  to 
his  disciples  that  Jesus  must  increase  while  he 
himself  decreased.4 

The  motive  for  the  departure  of  Jesus  to 
Galilee,  the  second  time,  as  given  in  John,5  was 
the  opposition  of  the  Pharisees  to  Him  because 
of  His  greater  success  in  winning  disciples  than 
John.  This  naturally  implies  that  Jesus  left  for 
Galilee  while  John  was  still  working.  The 
statement  of  Mark,6  upon  which  Matthew7  is 
based,  that  He  withdrew  into  Galilee  after  the 
arrest  of  John,  is,  as  we  have  seen,8  either  incor- 
rect, or  was  not  meant  to  exclude  an  intro- 
ductory Galilean  ministry.  At  all  events  the 


1  John  iii.  22-23,  26,  iv.  1-2.  2  John  iii.  25. 

3  Mark  ii.  18-22.  4  John  iii.  25-30. 

5  John  iv.  1.  6  Mark  i.  14. 

7  Matt.  iv.  12.  8  See  pp.  1  seq. 


20         NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

arrest  of  the  Baptist  could  not  have  been  long 
after  this  second  departure  of  Jesus  into  Galilee 
and  probably  it  was  soon  afterward. 

The  arrest  of  the  Baptist  is  stated  in  Mark 1 
and  Matthew2  incidentally  in  connection  with 
their  account  of  the  opening  of  the  Galilean 
ministry.  But  the  Gospels  give  a  fuller  account 
at  a  much  later  date,  incidentally  again,  as  pre- 
paratory to  the  narrative  of  the  martyrdom  of 
the  Baptist.3  Luke,  however,  mentions  the  im- 
prisonment as  supplementary  to  an  account  of 
his  work.4  The  imprisonment  is  also  mentioned 
incidentally  in  Matthew,5  in  connection  with 
the  message  of  the  Baptist  to  Jesus. 

There  are  three  important  events  which  are  in 
chronological  succession  in  the  closing  career  of 
the  Baptist:  (1)  His  imprisonment,  (2)  His 
message  to  Jesus,  (3)  His  death.  These  give 
us  a  frame  on  which  we  may  construct  a  large 
part  of  the  Galilean  ministry  of  Jesus. 

1.  The  arrest  and  imprisonment  of  the  Bap- 
tist were  due  to  his  prophetic  denunciation  of 
Herod  for  his  illegal  marriage  with  Herodias  his 
brother's  wife.  It  is  improbable  that  this  could 

1  Mark  i.  14.  2  Matt.  iv.  12. 

3  Mark  vi.  17,  18  ;  Matt.  xiv.  3-5.  4  Luke  iii.  19,  20. 

5  Matt.  xi.  2. 


JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  21 

have  occurred  while  Jesus  was  working  with 
him;  otherwise  Jesus  also  would  have  been 
under  suspicion  by  Herod  and  his  satellites.  It 
is  probable,  therefore,  that  it  did  not  occur  until 
after  Jesus  had  departed  into  Galilee.  But  it 
was  probably  soon  after  Jesus  arrived  in  Galilee. 
2.  The  Baptist  while  in  prison  sends  a  mes- 
sage to  Jesus  through  two  of  his  disciples.  This 
message  is  not  given  in  Mark  but  in  Matthew l 
and  Luke.2  The  message  was:  "Art  Thou  he 
that  cometh,  or  look  we  for  another?"  This  does 
not  imply  any  doubt  in  the  Baptist's  mind  as  to 
the  fact  that  Jesus  was  the  One  he  had  already 
proclaimed  him  to  be,  as  the  One  greater  than 
himself  whose  advent  it  was  his  privilege  to 
herald.  But  it  implied  a  doubt  whether  Jesus 
in  all  respects  fulfilled  the  ideal  of  his  prediction. 
This  was  due  to  the  complexity  of  the  Messianic 
ideals  of  the  Old  Testament,3  and  also  to  the  fact 
that  the  Baptist  had  heralded  the  advent  of  God 
in  a  day  of  judgment.  He  could  not  see  his  way 
through  the  mazes  of  prophetic  ideals.  Jesus  in 
His  reply  tells  these  disciples  of  the  Baptist  to 
report  what  they  have  seen  and  heard. 


1  Matt.  xi.  2-19-  2  Luke  vii.  18-35. 

8  The  Incarnation  of  the  Lord,  pp.  172  seq. 


%%         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

"  The  blind  receive  their  sight ; 
The  lame  walk  ; 
The  lepers  are  cleansed  ; 
The  deaf  hear; 
The  dead  are  raised  up  ; 
The  poor  have  good  tidings  preached  to  them  ; 
Blessed  is  he,  whosoever  shall  find  none  occasion  of  stumbling 
in  me." 

This  logion  is  practically  identical  in  both 
reports  and  probably  comes  from  the  Logia  of 
Matthew.  It  implies  therefore  a  considerable 
amount  of  miracle-working  and  preaching  by 
Jesus.  Indeed  it  was  the  report  of  this,  that 
came  to  the  Baptist  either  by  rumor  or  from 
the  testimony  of  his  disciples,  or  from  both, 
which  was  the  occasion  of  the  message.  We 
may  safely  put  the  following  incidents  in  the 
second  Galilean  ministry  prior  to  the  message  of 
the  Baptist: 

(1.)  The  healing  of  the  man  with  the  withered 
hand  on  a  sabbath  in  the  synagogue  which  im- 
mediately follows,  in  the  three  Synoptists,1  the 
story  of  the  plucking  of  the  ears  of  grain  on  the 
sabbath.  Matthew  puts  both  of  these  incidents 
later,  after  the  sending  forth  of  the  Twelve. 
But  Matthew's  order  is  evidently  not  historical. 


1  Mark  Hi.  1-6  ;  Matt.  xii.  9-14;  Luke  vi.  6-11. 


JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  23 

The  order  of  the  other  Synoptists  is  also  topical. 
The  intense  hostility  of  the  Pharisees  in  con- 
nection with  this  healing  is  too  early  in  the 
development  of  the  conflict  of  Jesus  with  them. 
This  event  belongs  at  the  close  of  this  visit  to 
Galilee,  just  before  going  to  the  feast  of  Pen- 
tecost. For  topical  reasons  it  is  given  out  of 
place  even  in  Mark. 

(2.)  The  preaching  by  the  seashore1  comes 
next;  then, 

(3.)  The  appointment  of  the  Twelve.2 

(4.)  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  really,  ac- 
cording to  Luke,  the  discourse  of  Consecration 
of  the  Twelve.3  This  is  enlarged  in  Matthew 
v.-vii.,  by  the  addition  of  a  great  amount  of  ma- 
terial selected  from  logia  given  on  many  differ- 
ent occasions,  according  to  Luke. 

(5.)  The  healing  of  the  Centurion's  servant  in 
Capernaum  soon  follows.4  This  is  doubtless  the 
same  as  the  similar  story  of  John.5  It  tells  us 
that  Jesus  was  at  Cana  when  the  nobleman 
sent  to  Him  to  come  to  Capernaum,  which 
implies  a  work  in  Cana  after  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  on  the  way  to  Capernaum. 

1   Mark  iii.  7-12.  2  Mark  iii.  13-19a;  Luke  vi.  12-19. 

3    Luke  vi.  20-4-9.  4  Luke  vii.  1-10;  Matt.  viii.  5-13. 

5  John  iv.  4.6-54. 


4         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

(6.)  Luke  reports  the  raising  of  the  widow's 
son  at  Nam,1  prior  to  the  message. 

The  narratives  also  imply  an  extended  tour, 
in  which  Jesus  was  followed  by  multitudes,  and 
during  which  He  wrought  many  miracles. 

Are  these  incidents  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  words  of  His  message  to  the  Baptist?  A 
leper  was  healed  on  His  first  tour.2  A  dead  boy 
was  raised  in  the  second  tour.3  But  thus  far 
there  has  been  no  report  of  healing  the  blind, 
lame,  or  deaf.  Are  we  justified  in  including 
these  under  the  generic  terms  for  healings  given 
in  the  previous  narrative  ? — or,  must  we  put  this 
message  of  the  Baptist  later,  after  such  miracles 
are  reported  ? — or,  if  we  cannot  take  either  of 
these  alternatives,  are  we  to  suppose  this  logion 
was  not  exactly  what  Jesus  said,  but  a  summing 
up  of  His  miracle-working  uttered  later  and 
attached  by  the  evangelist  here  for  topical  rea- 
sons ?  Luke  tells  us :  "  In  that  hour  he  cured 
many  of  diseases  and  plagues  and  evil  spirits; 
and  on  many  that  were  blind  he  bestowed  sight" 4 
But  this  is  not  in  Matthew  and  was  not  derived 
from  the  Logia,  and  may  be  regarded  as  an 


1  Luke  vii.  11-17.  2  Mark  i.  40-45. 

3  Luke  vii.  11-17.  4  Luke  vii.  21. 


(    UNIVERSITY    ) 
J 
*^^  S*r 

JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  25 

explanatory  addition  of  Luke.  In  case  the 
logion  was  a  topical  addition  to  the  narrative, 
the  answer  of  Jesus  to  the  Baptist  would  be 
simply  His  words  to  the  two  disciples  :  "  Go 
your  way,  and  tell  John  what  things  ye  have 
seen  and  heard."1  This  on  the  whole,  seems 
most  probable  under  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  case.  If  the  view  taken  in  another  chapter 
be  correct2  that  all  this  took  place  between 
Passover  and  Pentecost,  and  that  John  the  Bap- 
tist's arrest  took  place  soon  after  Passover,  then 
the  message  must  have  been  sent  between  thirty 
and  forty  days  after  the  arrest  of  John. 

3.  The  final  catastrophe  of  the  beheading  of 
the  Baptist  is  reported  in  the  three  Synoptists.3 
This  is  given  incidentally,  some  time  after  its  oc- 
currence, in  connection  with  Herod's  alarm  lest 
Jesus  might  be  John  the  Baptist  risen  from  the 
dead.  The  story  is  given  by  the  three  Synoptists 
immediately  before  the  Feeding  of  the  multitude. 
Mark  and  Luke  let  it  immediately  follow  the 
Commission  of  the  Twelve.  But  Matthew  in- 
serts a  considerable  amount  of  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  between  the  Commission  and  this  story,  all 


1  Luke  vii.  22  ;  Matt.  xi.  4.  f  See  pp.  15,  52. 

3  Mark  vi.  14-29  ;  Matt.  xiv.  1-12  ;  cf.  Luke  ix.  7-9. 


26         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

of  which  is  out  of  place.  There  is  a  great  gap 
here  in  the  narrative  of  Mark,  during  the  ab- 
sence of  the  Twelve,  which  we  shall  consider 
later  on.  But  at  this  point  we  must  ask,  what, 
then,  was  the  place  of  the  death  of  the  Baptist 
in  relation  to  the  ministry  of  Jesus  ?  It  is  prob- 
able that  there  was  a  real  connection  between 
the  Commission  of  the  Twelve  and  the  death  of 
the  Baptist.  The  putting  of  the  Baptist  to  death 
at  the  solicitation  of  Herodias,  which  Herod 
commanded  with  great  reluctance,  with  many 
scruples,  and  much  anxiety,  doubtless  made  him 
very  sensitive  to  public  opinions  and  supersti- 
tions. When  the  miracle-working  and  preaching 
of  Jesus  was  reported  to  him  soon  afterward,  he 
saw  that  Jesus  was  carrying  on  the  work  of  the 
Baptist  with  greater  vigor  and  success,  and  he 
feared  that  John  the  Baptist  had  risen  from  the 
dead  in  the  person  of  Jesus. 

This  put  the  work  of  Jesus  and  Jesus  Him- 
self in  great  peril  from  Herod  and  his  court. 
This,  therefore,  was  a  reason  why  Jesus  should 
give  over  His  mission  in  Galilee  to  the  Twelve, 
and  retire  Himself  to  another  and  safer  field  of 
labor.  If  this  be  so,  it  is  probable  that  the 
death  of  John  occurred  shortly  before  the  Com- 
mission of  the  Twelve.  We  may,  therefore,  put 


JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  27 

the  most  of  the  remaining  Galilean  ministry  of 
Jesus  prior  to  the  death  of  the  Baptist. 

John  v.  reports  a  journey  of  Jesus  to  Jerusa- 
lem at  a  feast.  If  this  was  Pentecost,  as  we 
shall  show  later  on,1  it  came  a  few  days  after  the 
message  of  the  Baptist  to  Jesus.  In  His  dis- 
course at  this  feast  Jesus  said  to  the  Pharisees — 
"  Ye  have  sent  unto  John,  and  he  hath  borne  wit- 
ness unto  the  truth.  .  .  .  He  was  the  lamp  that 
burneth  and  shineth  ;  and  ye  were  willing  to  re- 
joice for  a  season  in  his  light." 2  Does  this  imply 
that  the  Baptist  was  still  alive  or  that  he  was 
already  dead  ?  These  words  do  not  suggest  the 
death  of  the  Baptist.  It  seems  probable  that  if 
the  Baptist  had  already  suffered  death,  it  would 
have  appeared  in  a  reference  to  him  at  this 
time.  It  is  most  natural  to  interpret  these 
words  as  referring  to  the  testimony  of  one  still 
living,  but  whose  career  had  diminished  in  im- 
portance. 

John3  states  that  after  the  Feast  of  Dedica- 
tion Jesus  went  into  Persea  "into  the  place 
where  John  was  at  the  first  baptizing ;  and  there 
he  abode.  And  many  came  unto  him  ;  and  they 
said,  John  indeed  did  no  sign,  but  all  things  what- 


1  See  p.  52.  *  John  v.  33-35.          3  John  x.  40-41. 


28         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

soever  John  spake  of  this  man  were  true" l  This 
speaks  of  John  as  if  he  were  no  longer  living. 
The  death  of  John  occurred,  therefore,  in  all 
probability  between  Pentecost  and  Dedication. 
If  the  view  taken  in  another  chapter  is  correct,2 
it  occurred  between  Pentecost  and  Tabernacles. 
If,  as  we  suppose,  John  the  Baptist  was  arrested 
soon  after  Passover,  he  was  put  to  death  on  the 
subsequent  birthday  of  Herod,  a  little  before 
Tabernacles  of  the  same  year.  It  is  not  likely 
that  his  enemies  would  allow  him  to  live  any 
longer  than  they  could  help. 

Soon  after  the  message  of  the  Baptist  Jesus 
goes  to  the  Feast  of  Pentecost,  and  then  returns 
for  His  third  mission  to  Galilee.  The  earlier  in- 
cidents are  mentioned  by  Luke  alone,  namely: 

(1)  His  anointing  by  a  penitent  woman  in  the 
house  of  Simon.3 

(2)  He  made  a  tour  through  Galilee  accom- 
panied by  several  women  as  well  as  His  other 
disciples.4 

(3)  The  three  Synoptists  report  the  anxiety 
of  His  family  respecting  Him,  in  connection  with 
which  He  proclaims   the  true  kinship   of  the 


1  John  x.  22.  2  See  p.  43. 

s  Luke  vii.  36-50.  4  Luke  viii.  1-3. 


JESUS  AND  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  29 

family  of  God.1  Mark  inserts  here,2  sustained 
by  Matthew,3  material  given  by  Luke  *  at  a  later 
and  better  date.  Probably  this  material  was  in- 
serted for  topical  reasons,  and  may  be  an  addi- 
tion to  the  original  Mark.  It  is  chiefly  com- 
posed of  logia. 

(4)  Next  come  the  parables  of  the  Kingdom 
spoken  at  the  seaside,5  to  which  Matthew  adds  a 
number  of  other  parables  of  the  Kingdom  spoken 
at  other  times.6 

(5)  Jesus  then  crosses  the  sea  into  the  country 
of  the  Gadarenes  ;  on  the  way  he  stills  the  tem- 
pest, and,  arriving   on   the  other   side,  heals   a 
demoniac.7 

(6)  Returning  to  the  Galilean  side  of  the  sea, 
Jesus  raises  Jairus'  daughter  from  the  dead,  and 
cures  a  woman  from  an  issue  of  blood.8 

(7)  He  then  makes  a  final  tour  in  Galilee,9 
which  may  correspond  with  the  one  mentioned 
in  Luke,10  the  latter  beginning  the  narrative  with 


1  Markiii.  19b-21,31-35;  Matt.xii.  46-50  ;  Luke  viii.  8-19- 

2  Mark  iii.  22-30.     9  Matt.  xii.  22-45.    4  Luke  xi.  14-36. 
5  Mark  iv.  1-34  ;  Luke  viii.  4-18.  6  Matt.  xiii.  1-53. 

7  Mark  iv.  35-41,  v.  1-20  ;    Luke  viii.  22-39  ;   Matt.  viii. 
22-34. 

8  Mark  v.  21-43  ;  Matt.  ix.  18-26  ;  Luke  viii,  40-56. 

9  Mark  vi.  6  ;  Matt.  ix.  35.  10  Luke  viii.  1-3. 


30         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the   general   statement,  the  former   concluding 
with  the  general  statement. 

Jesus  now  hears  of  the  death  of  the  Baptist 
and  the  suspicion  of  Herod  relating  to  himself, 
and  He  commissions  the  Twelve  to  go  in  pairs 
and  carry  on  his  Mission  in  Galilee,1  to  which 
Matthew2  adds  many  logia  given  by  Luke  in 
connection  with  the  commission  of  the  Seventy, 
and  others  belonging  to  the  final  Apostolic  Com- 
mission.3 


1  Mark  vi.  7-13  ;  Luke  ix.  1-6.  *  Matt.  x.  1,  5-xi.  1. 

3  See  The  Apostolic  Commission,  Art.  i.  in  Studies  in  Honor  of 
B.  L.  Gildersleeve. 


Ill 

THE   TWELVE   AND   THE   SEVENTY 

THE  Gospels  of  Mark  and  Matthew  give 
the  sending  forth  of  the  Twelve,  the  Gos- 
pel of  Luke  the  sending  forth  of  both  the  Twelve 
and  the  Seventy.  The  Gospel  of  John  says 
nothing  about  either  event.  It  does  not  men- 
tion the  Seventy  at  all.  It  mentions  the  Twelve 
only  twice,  and  even  these  passages  may  be 
redactional.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  Gospel 
gives  a  group  of  seven  disciples,  and  mentions 
several  names  not  known  to  the  Synoptists. 
These  differences  raise  several  difficult  questions. 
The  story  of  Mark1  is  simple.  The  sending 
forth  of  the  Twelve  in  pairs  to  preach  repent- 
ance and  work  miracles  is  given  without  explicit 
motive.  The  story  of  the  death  of  John  the 
Baptist  is  inserted.2  Then  the  return  of  the 
Twelve  is  given  in  connection  with  the  Feeding 
of  the  multitudes.3 


1  Mark  vi.  7-13.        2  Mark  vi.  14-29-         8  Mark  vi.  30-46. 


32         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

The  story  of  Luke1  is  evidently  based  on 
Mark,  and  gives  nothing  additional  of  any  im- 
portance. But  Luke  also  gives  an  account  of 
the  sending  forth  of  the  Seventy2  and  their 
return3  in  connection  with  a  large  amount  of 
material  usually  supposed  to  belong  to  the 
Pereean  ministry,  unknown  for  the  most  part  to 
Matthew  and  Mark,  and  evidently  derived  from 
a  source  unknown  to  these  Evangelists. 

A  large  amount  of  the  material,  in  the  form 
of  logia,  spoken  by  Jesus  in  connection  with  the 
sending  forth  and  the  return  of  the  Seventy,  is 
given  by  Matthew  in  connection  with  the  mission 
and  return  of  the  Twelve.4  Between  these  is 
inserted  the  sending  of  the  disciples  of  the 
Baptist  to  Jesus,5  given  by  Luke  elsewhere.  In 
fact,  as  I  have  shown,  Matthew  heaps  up  in  this 
section  a  number  of  logia  connected  with  the 
ministry  of  the  disciples,  not  only  those  uttered 
by  Jesus  according  to  Luke  on  these  two  dif- 
ferent occasions,  but  also  some  belonging  to  the 
final  commission  of  the  Twelve  before  His  de- 
parture from  the  world  to  the  Father.6  Many 


1  Luke  ix.  1-6.          2  Luke  x.  1-1 6.         3  Luke  x.  17-24. 
4  Matt.  x.  1-xi.  1,  and  xi.  20-27.  5  Matt.  xi.  2-19. 

6  The  Apostolic  Com?nission,  Art.  i.  in  Studies  in  Honor  of  B. 
L.  Gildersleeve. 


THE  TWELVE  AND  THE  SEVENTY  38 

of  the  logia  scattered  through  those  chapters  of 
Luke  which  are  peculiar  to  him,  are  found  in 
Matthew  attached  to  his  version  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  the  Woes  of  the  Pharisees,  and 
the  Eschatological  Discourse,  all  derived  from 
the  Logia  of  Matthew  by  our  Gospels  of  Mat- 
thew and  Luke,  notwithstanding  this  difference 
in  the  grouping  of  the  material. 

There  is  no  sufficient  reason  why  we  should 
doubt  the  mission  of  this  second  group  of 
disciples  by  Jesus.  It  is  altogether  probable 
that  the  Twelve  were  commissioned  for  a 
Galilean  ministry,  the  Seventy  for  a  Peraean 
and  Judasan  ministry.  It  is  a  common  opinion 
that  Jesus  was  accompanied  by  the  Twelve 
throughout  His  ministry,  and  that  their  absence 
from  Him  was  quite  brief.  This  opinion  is  due 
doubtless  to  the  fact  that  the  return  from  their 
mission  is  given  in  the  narrative  so  close  to  the 
sending  forth.  But  this,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Seventy  also,  was  due  to  topical  reasons  and  by 
no  means  implies  the  close  proximity  in  time  of 
the  sending  and  the  return.  This  mission,  if 
it  amounted  to  anything,  must  have  continued 
several  weeks  at  least. 

There  are  in  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and 
Mark  many  instances  of  calls  to  a  special  follow- 


34         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

ing  of  Jesus  connected  with  the  abandonment  of 
all  things  else,  some  accepted,  others  rejected — 
calls  which  imply  a  larger  circle  of  special 
disciples  than  the  Twelve,  and  which,  therefore, 
incidentally  sustain  another  and  a  larger  group 
of  ministers,  such  as  the  Seventy  of  Luke.  Only 
thus  can  we  get  a  basis  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
for  the  two  groups  of  the  apostolic  history,  the 
Twelve  and  the  larger  group  of  prophets  such 
as  Barnabas,  Ananias,  Joseph,  and  Matthias,  the 
latter  of  whom  was  assigned  the  place  of  Judas 
in  the  group  of  the  Twelve.  The  term  apostle 
was  not  used  by  Jesus,  but  was  first  given 
at  Antioch  in  connection  with  the  mission  of 
Barnabas  and  Paul,  and  was  a  comprehensive 
term  which  was  used  indifferently  for  both  of 
these  groups. 

A  careful  study  of  the  Gospels  shows  us  that 
there  was  indeed  a  natural  and  simple  develop- 
ment in  the  calling,  training,  and  sending  forth 
of  the  ministry  by  Jesus  during  His  lifetime. 
The  Synoptic  narrative  tells  of  the  call  of  the 
four  fishermen  and  of  Matthew.  The  narrative 
of  John  tells  us  of  the  call  of  Andrew  and  Simon, 
Philip  and  Nathanael,  and  a  fifth,  probably  John. 
Nathanael  is  usually  regarded  as  another  name 
for  Bartholomew  of  the  Synoptists  ;  but  this  is 


THE  TWELVE  AND  THE  SEVENTY  35 

by  no  means  certain.  How  and  when  the  others 
named  among  the  Twelve  were  called  by  Jesus 
we  are  not  told.  But  it  was  not  long  before  a 
group  of  Twelve  was  selected  with  Peter  at  the 
head.1 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  so  called,  accord- 
ing to  the  version  of  Luke  which  is  nearest  to 
the  original,  was  a  discourse  of  consecration. 
Matthew  has  attached  to  it  a  large  amount  of 
material  gathered  from  the  Logia  of  Matthew, 
given  by  the  other  Synoptists  on  many  other 
different  occasions. 

After  continuing  with  Jesus  as  a  group  of 
Twelve  for  some  considerable  time,  they  were 
sent  forth  in  pairs  to  conduct  missions  through- 
out Galilee.  At  this  time  Jesus  gave  them  a 
solemn  charge.  This  mission  continued  until 
shortly  before  the  last  journey  of  Jesus  to  Jeru- 
salem. 

It  is  probable  that  one  of  these  pairs  always 
remained  with  Jesus  ;  at  one  time  John  and 
James,  at  another  Andrew  and  Peter,  at  another 
Matthew  and  Thomas.  But  the  Twelve,  as  a 
whole,  were  absent  on  their  mission  from  this 
time  forth  until  they  rejoined  Jesus  just  prior  to 


Mark  iii.  13-19;  Matt.  x.  2-4;  Luke  vi.  12-19- 


36         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  Feeding  of  the  multitudes,  which  was  only  a 
short  time  before  the  Passion  of  Jesus,  and  not 
in  the  midst  of  His  ministry,  as  is  commonly 
supposed. 

In  the  meanwhile  Jesus  was  attaching  other 
disciples  to  Himself  besides  the  Twelve,  by  special 
calls,  and  preparing  them  for  a  special  ministry. 
Before  setting  forth  upon  His  Persean  ministry, 
He  organizes  Seventy  of  these  in  a  group  and 
sends  them  forth  in  pairs  to  prepare  the  way 
before  Him  in  Pereea  and  in  Judaea.  These  also 
return  to  Him,  probably  on  His  last  passage  along 
the  border  of  Pereea  on  His  way  to  Jerusalem. 

The  mission  of  the  Seventy  is  not  reported  in 
Mark  because  that  Gospel  depends  upon  the 
preaching  of  Peter,  and  Peter  seems  to  have 
limited  his  testimony  to  that  which  he  himself 
had  seen  and  heard.  He  was  not  present  during 
the  Persean  and  Judasan  ministry  of  Luke  and 
John,  and  therefore  makes  no  report  of  it,  or  of 
the  work  of  the  Seventy  with  which  he  had 
nothing  to  do. 

The  Gospel  of  Matthew  is  based  on  Mark  and 
the  Logia  of  Matthew,  which  latter  1  was  simply 


1  See  my  articles,  Expository  Times,  June,  July,  August, 
November,  1897. 


THE  TWELVE  AND  THE  SEVENTY  37 

a  collection  of  the  wisdom  of  Jesus  with  occa- 
sional introductory  incidents,  but  without  his- 
torical narrative.  These  the  author  of  our  Gospel 
of  Matthew  arranged  as  best  he  could  in  groups 
on  the  basis  of  Mark's  narrative.  He  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  special  sources  used  by  Luke 
and  John,  or  of  the  historical  material  given  in 
those  sources. 

If  the  order  in  the  development  of  the  ministry 
given  above  is  correct,  we  have  an  important 
help  for  the  arrangement  of  the  material  relating 
to  the  life  of  Jesus. 

1.  The  calling  of  disciples  to  follow  Jesus  in  a 
life  involving  an  abandonment  of  all  else. 

2.  The  selection  of  Twelve  of  these  into  a 
special  group,  and  their  solemn  setting  apart. 

3.  The  mission  of  these  Twelve  to  Galilee. 

4.  The  selection  of  a  larger  group  of  Seventy, 
and  their  consecration. 

5.  The  mission  of  the  Seventy  to  Perasa  and 
Judaea. 

6.  The  return  of  the  Twelve  near  Bethsaida  in 
order  to  accompany  Jesus  to  His  last  Passover. 

7.  The  return  of  the  Seventy  on  His  last  jour- 
ney along  the  border  of  Peraaa  to  Jerusalem. 

8.  The  final  commission  of  the  apostolic  min- 
istry. 


38         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

If  now  we  take  this  as  a  framework  for  the 
material  given  in  the  Gospels,  it  is  evident  that 
the  usual  arrangement  of  the  harmonists  is  in- 
correct. 

The  material  Mark  vi.  30-ix.  =  Matt.  xiv.  13- 
xviii.  =  Luke  ix.  10-50  does  not  precede  Luke 
x.-xviii.  14,  but  follows  it.  Luke  xviii.  15-34 
coincides  with  Mark  x.  13-34.  The  material 
inserted  here  in  Luke  between  ix.  50  and  xviii.  15 
is  material,  apart  from  the  logia,  derived  from 
another  source  unknown  to  Mark  and  Matthew. 
Luke  does  not  mingle  the  material  derived  from 
this  source  with  the  material  derived  from  Mark, 
but  follows  Mark  essentially  as  far  as  ix.  50,  only 
changing  the  order  occasionally  for  topical  rea- 
sons, and  then  gives  his  new  material  entirely  by 
itself.  This  new  material,  apart  from  the  logia, 
belongs  for  the  most  part  to  the  Peraean  minis- 
try, while  Peter  was  absent  from  Jesus  in  Gal- 
ilee. There  is  no  sound  reason  which  compels 
us  to  place  this  ministry  subsequent  to  the  entire 
Galilean  ministry,  as  the  modern  harmonists  do. 

The  situation  is  similar  with  the  material  given 
in  John  vii.  1-xi.  54.  This  is  based  on  a  source 
unknown  to  the  Synoptists.  There  is  no  sound 
reason  why  it  should  be  placed  between  Mark 
ix.  50  and  Mark  x.  2.  The  single  intervening 


THE  TWELVE  AND  THE  SEVENTY  39 

verse  x.  1  may  or  may  not  correspond  with  Luke 
ix.  51.  The  passages  are  not  so  similar  that  a 
coincidence  is  evident.  In  the  former  Jesus 
goes  into  the  borders  of  Jordan  and  Pereea.  In 
the  latter  he  goes  steadfastly  toward  Jerusalem 
through  Samaria,  which  is  very  different.  The 
latter  probably  corresponds  with  the  journey  to 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,1  to  which  He  went  up 
secretly  through  Samaria,  the  unusual  route,  to 
avoid  the  publicity  of  the  usual  route  by  the 
valley  of  the  Jordan.  The  former  probably  was 
much  later,  His  last  journey  on  which  He  cast 
all  secrecy  and  prudence  aside,  and  therefore  went 
to  Jerusalem  by  the  usual  route  with  all  His 
disciples  by  way  of  the  Jordan,  Jericho,  and 
Bethany. 

This  arrangement  of  the  material  gives  a  bet- 
ter development  to  the  narrative,  explains  the 
silence  of  Mark  as  to  the  Persean  and  Jerusalem 
ministry  by  the  absence  of  Peter,  whose  preach- 
ing was  the  basis  of  Mark,  and  puts  a  new  light 
upon  many  obscure  problems. 


1  John  vii.  1-13. 


IV 


WHERE   WAS   JESUS   DURING   THE   ABSENCE   OF 
THE   TWELVE?1 

THE  sending  forth  of  the  Twelve  was  for 
a  mission  in  Galilee.2  They  went  in  pairs, 
therefore,  in  six  different  circuits.  This  mission 
must  have  taken  some  considerable  time ;  for  it 
contemplates  the  going  from  one  city  to  another 
and  from  house  to  house,  and  the  sojourning  for 
a  time  in  houses  and  cities,  because  directions 
are  given  respecting  just  these  things.  All  this 
could  not  have  been  accomplished  in  a  few  days. 
A  comprehensive  mission  seems  to  have  been 
contemplated  so  as  to  reach  entire  Galilee. 

The  return  is  given  in  close  connection  with 
the  sending.3     These  Evangelists  insert  accounts 


1  I  have  asked  several  eminent  New  Testament  scholars  this 
question,  but  not  one  of  them  had  thought  of  it  before,  or 
could  give  me  an  answer.     So  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  har- 
monists and  authors  of  Lives  of  Jesus  have  not  considered  it. 

2  Mark  vi.  7-13;  Matt.  ix.  36-xi.  1  ;  Luke  ix.  1-6. 
8  Mark  vi.  30 ;  Luke  ix.  10. 


DURING  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE  TWELVE     41 

of  the  death  of  John  the  Baptist,1  motived  by 
the  fact  that  Herod  heard  of  the  great  work  of 
Jesus,  and  was  so  disturbed  by  it  that  he  sup- 
posed that  John  the  Baptist  had  risen  from 
the  dead  in  Jesus.  This  is  given  by  Matthew2 
immediately  before  the  Feeding  of  the  multi- 
tude, without  any  mention  of  the  return  of 
the  Twelve.  That  Gospel  inserts  a  considerable 
amount  of  material  here. 

(1)  An  account  of  the  message  of  the  Baptist 
to  Jesus,3  which  is  given  by  Luke  at  an  earlier 
and  more  probable  date.4 

(2)  A  number  of  logia  follow,5  the  most  of 
which  are  given  by  Luke  more  appropriately  in 
connection  with  the  return  of  the  Seventy.6 

(3)  Matthew  also  gives,  before  the  Feeding  of 
the    multitudes,  various  incidents    reported    by 
Mark  and  Luke  at  other  dates.7 


1  Mark  vi.  14-29  =  Luke  ix.  7-9  2  Matt.  xiv.  1-12. 

3  Matt.  xi.  2-19.  4  Luke  vii.  18-35. 

6  Matt.  xi.  20-30.  *  Luke  x.  13-24. 

7  (a)  Matt.  xii.  1-21  =  Markii.  23-iii.  12  =  Luke  vi.  1-1 1  ; 
(b)  Matt.  xii.  22-50  =  Mark  iii.  19b-35 — incidents  given  by 
Luke  at  two  different  times,  the  former  (xi.  14-36)  at  a  later 
date,  the  latter  (viii.  19-21)  at  an  earlier  date  ;  (c)  Matt.  xiii. 
1-53,  the  parables  by  the  sea  —  Mark  iv.  1-34  =  Luke  viii. 
4-18  ;  and  (d)  Matt.  xiii.  54-58,  the  rejection  at  Nazareth  = 
Mark  vi.  1-6  =  Luke  iv.  16-30. 


1%         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Mark  and  Luke  make  no  statement  whatever 
as  to  what  Jesus  did  in  the  absence  of  the 
Twelve.  But  Matthew  tells  us  :  *  "And  it  came 
to  pass,  when  Jesus  had  made  an  end  of  com- 
manding his  twelve  disciples,  he  departed  thence 
to  teach  and  preach  in  their  cities."  This  is  a 
general  statement,  which  this  Gospel  adds  to 
the  Markan  source,  and  is  indeed  most  proba- 
ble in  itself.  But  it  does  not  tell  us  where  Jesus 
carried  on  His  ministry.  It  is  not  probable  that 
He  reserved  a  seventh  circuit  in  Galilee  to  Him- 
self, or  that  He  went  with  one  pair  on  one  of 
these  circuits.  It  is  much  more  probable  that 
having  divided  up  Galilee  among  the  Twelve, 
He  Himself,  either  alone  or,  more  likely,  with 
one  of  these  pairs,  went  elsewhere  to  carry  on 
His  ministry.  The  insertion  of  so  many  inci- 
dents by  Matthew  prior  to  the  Feeding  of  the 
multitudes,  in  connection  with  which  Mark,  fol- 
lowed by  Luke,  gives  the  return  of  the  Twelve— 
although  Matthew  does  not  mention  the  return 
at  all — yet  implies  that  the  author  of  this  Gospel 
supposed  there  was  a  considerable  ministry  of 
Jesus  during  that  interval.  Some  of  these  inci- 
dents given  by  Matthew  in  this  interval  really 


1  Matt.  xi.  i. 


DURING  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE  TWELVE     43 

belong  there.  But  Mark's  order  in  most  cases 
is  to  be  preferred;  in  others,  that  of  Luke. 
We  must  recognize  however  the  effort  of  the 
author  of  Matthew  to  fill  up  this  gap. 

If  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Jesus,  dur- 
ing the  absence  of  the  Twelve  would  carry  on 
His  ministry  elsewhere  than  in  Galilee,  then  we 
have  a  gap  of  time  in  which  we  may  place  the 
Jerusalem  ministry  of  the  Gospel  of  John  and 
the  Peraean  ministry  of  the  Gospel  of  Luke, 
both  absent  from  the  Gospel  of  Mark  because 
Peter  was  on  a  mission  in  Galilee  all  this  time. 
And,  indeed,  this  ministry  in  Jerusalem  and 
Persea  fits  into  this  space  with  the  utmost  ex- 
actness and  nicety.  It  is  evident  from  Mark 
and  Luke  that  the  anxiety  of  Herod  was  a  real 
peril  for  the  continuance  of  Jesus'  work,  and  was 
a  sufficient  motive  for  giving  over  His  Galilean 
ministry  to  the  Twelve,  while  He  Himself  re- 
tired elsewhere. 

Luke,1  at  the  beginning  of  the  material  derived 
by  this  Evangelist  from  another  source  than 
Mark,  tells  us  that  Jesus  set  His  face  to  go  to 
Jerusalem,  and  that  He  went  by  way  of  Samaria. 
This  unusual  route  to  Jerusalem,  instead  of  the 


1  Luke  ix.  51-56. 


44         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

usual  route  by  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  was 
doubtless  because  of  the  peril  from  Herod  and 
the  need  of  a  secret  journey.  The  brother  pair, 
James  and  John,  accompanied  Him  on  this 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  as  is  evident  from  the  first 
incident  in  Samaria,  where  their  names  are  men- 
tioned and  no  others.  There  is  no  evidence  of 
the  presence  of  any  others  of  the  Twelve. 

This  journey  may  be  put  in  parallelism  with 
the  journey  described  in  John.1  Jesus  does  not 
go  up  to  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  with  His 
brethren  in  a  public  way,  but  in  secret;  and  He 
does  not  appear  in  public  until  the  midst  of  the 
feast.2  During  this  feast  the  visit  to  Martha 
and  Mary  in  Bethany3  doubtless  occurred.  It  is 
probable  that  the  Seventy  were  sent  forth  from 
Jerusalem  on  their  mission  to  Perasa  and  Judasa. 
From  Jerusalem  Jesus  follows  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  Seventy  in  a  ministry  in  Persea,4  which 
concludes  with  a  journey  to  Jerusalem.5  This 
journey  seems  to  correspond  with  that  reported 
in  John6  at  the  Feast  of  Dedication,  from  which 
He  returns  to  Pereea.7 

The  ministry  in  Pereea  included  the  incidents 


1  John  vii.  2-14.          2  John  vii.  10-14.         s  Luke  x.  38-42. 
4  Luke  x.  25-37,  xi.-xiii.  21.  5  Luke  xiii.  22. 

6  John  x.  22-39.         7  John  x.  40. 


DURING  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE  TWELVE     45 

and  teaching  mentioned  in  Luke,1  for  the  most 
part  at  least,  although  the  exact  connection  of 
the  logia  is  by  no  means  certain.  From  this 
ministry  Jesus  is  suddenly  recalled  to  Jerusalem 
by  the  death  of  Lazarus.2  The  raising  of 
Lazarus  from  the  dead  excited  so  great  atten- 
tion that  Jesus  was  in  great  danger  from  the 
authorities,  and  He  retires  to  Ephraim  on  the 
borders  of  Samaria.3 

It  is  probable  that  the  journey  northward  to 
Galilee  through  Samaria4  occurred  at  this  time. 
He  was  in  peril,  both  from  the  authorities  of 
Jerusalem  and  also  from  Herod,  and  the  safest 
journey  was  just  this  one.  He  was  on  the 
borders  of  Samaria  at  Ephraim,  and  the  journey 
through  Samaria  was  the  easiest  from  this  place. 
The  statement  "  Say  not  ye,  There  are  yet  four 
months,  and  then  cometh  the  harvest  ?  " 5  exactly 
suits  this  time.  Moreover,  the  explicit  statement 
of  His  Messiahship  suits  this  period  of  His  min- 
istry, and  could  hardly  have  come  much  earlier. 

The  order  of  the  material  of  John  is  certainly 
not  chronological  but  'topical,  as  Tatian  recog- 
nized.6 At  this  time  John  and  James  alone  of 


1  Luke  xiv.-xvii.  10.      2  John  xi.      3  John  xi.  54. 

4  John  iv.  3-43.          5  John  iv.  35. 

6  He  puts  the  journey  through  Samaria  after  Mark  vii.  24-37. 


46         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  Twelve  were  with  Jesus,  and  therefore 
John's  Gospel  tells  us  of  these  things  and 
Peter's  Gospel  does  not  mention  them.  Indeed, 
these  brothers  had  been  with  him  in  Samaria. 
They  would  be  especially  valuable  to  Jesus  in 
Jerusalem  because  of  their  important  acquaint- 
anceship there.1  They,  if  any  of  the  Twelve, 
would  remain  with  him  during  his  ministry  there, 
and  return  with  him  through  Samaria  to  Galilee. 

Arriving  in  Galilee,  Jesus  comes  at  once  into 
peril  from  Herod,  and  therefore  He  avoids  re- 
newing His  ministry  in  Galilee  and  hurries 
northward  to  Tyre  and  Sidon.2  It  is  probable 
that  the  preaching  in  Nazareth  and  His  rejection 
there  occurred  on  His  way.  The  Synoptists  are 
in  disagreement  as  to  the  time.3  It  is  more  ap- 
propriate here  because  of  the  explicit  statement 
of  Jesus'  Messiahship  with  the  implication  of 
His  impending  sufferings  and  the  hostile  temper 
of  the  Nazarenes.4 

Here  Mark  resumes  his   narrative,  and  it  is 


1  John  xviii.  15-16.  2  Mark  vii.  24-30. 

3  Mark  vi.  1-6;  Matt.  xiii.  54-58;  Luke  iv.  16-30. 

4  The  logion,  John  iv.  44,  certainly  was  uttered  at  Nazareth, 
and  suggests  that  the  discourse  at  Nazareth  immediately  fol- 
lowed the  journey  through  Samaria.     As  I  shall  show  later, 
there  has  been  a  displacement  of  the  original  John  here, 
See  p.  151. 


DURING  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE  TWELVE  47 

probable  that  Peter  and  Andrew  join  Jesus 
at  Nazareth  for  the  journey  northward,  while 
John  and  James  depart.  From  Phoenicia  Jesus 
journeys  along  the  northern  borders  of  Galilee 
to  Northern  Decapolis,1  and  so  to  Bethsaida, 
where  He  is  rejoined  by  the  entire  Twelve.2  It 
is  significant  that  the  feeding  of  the  four  thou- 
sand, which  is  probably  only  a  variant  tradition 
of  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  is  placed  by 
Mark3  and  Matthew4  after  the  journey  from 
Sidon  by  way  of  Decapolis.  The  feeding  of  the 
five  thousand  is  reported  in  John.5  Andrew  and 
Philip,  representing  two  pairs  of  the  Twelve, 
are  mentioned  as  with  him.  It  is  also  stated 
that  "  the  passover,  the  feast  of  the  Jews,  was 
at  hand"6  which  exactly  suits  this  time.  The 
harmonists,  even  Tatian,  place  this  event  too 
early,  and  therefore  find  it  difficult  to  explain  the 
discourse  of  Jesus  in  Capernaum,  which  follows 
just  after  crossing  the  sea,T  which  offends  many 
of  His  disciples  and  brings  on  the  crisis  in  which 
the  Twelve  recognize  Him  distinctly  as  the 
Messiah.8 

1  Mark  vii.  31.  2  Mark  vi.  30  =  Luke  ix.  JO. 

3   Mark  viii.  1-9.  4  Matt.  xv.  32-38. 

5  John  vi.  1-15.  6  John  vi.  4.  7  John  vi.  16-66. 

8  John  vi.   17  states  that  He  crossed  to  Capernaum;  Mark 
vi.   53,  Matt.   xiv.   34,   to  the    plain    of  Gennesaret;  Matt. 


48         NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

This  recognition,  however,  according  to  the 
Synoptists,  does  not  occur  at  Capernaum  but  at 
Cassarea  Philippi,1  whither  they  hastened  after  a 
brief  tarry  at  Bethsaida.2  These  rapid  move- 
ments indicate  a  consciousness  of  grave  peril. 

This  is  the  readjustment  of  the  order  of  events 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  which  is  required  by  the 
answer  to  the  question,  Where  was  Jesus  during 
the  absence  of  the  Twelve  ?  It  solves  a  number  of 
the  most  difficult  problems  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, explains  the  silence  of  Mark  as  to  the 
ministry  in  Persea  and  Judaea,  and  the  full  report 
of  John  as  to  the  Jerusalem  ministry,  and  his 
implicit  agreement  with  the  full  report  of  Luke 


xv.  39  that  He  crossed  to  the  borders  of  Magadan ;  Mark 
viii.  10  to  the  parts  of  Dalmanutha.  Mark  vi.  45  states  that 
their  real  destination  was  Bethsaida.  Gennesaret  is  a  general 
term  of  the  plain  on  the  border  of  which  Capernaum  was 
situated.  Magadan  may  be  another  name  for  Magdala,  which 
is  on  the  south  side  of  the  plain,  as  Capernaum  is  on  the 
north.  Dalmanutha  may  be  a  more  precise  designation  of 
the  place,  which  has  not  yet  been  identified.  All  these 
places  were  within  a  few  miles  of  each  other.  The  calm 
after  the  storm  compelled  them  to  seek  the  nearest  land. 

1  Mark  viii.  27-30;  Matt.  xvi.  13-20;  Luke  ix.  18-21. 

2  It  is  evident  that  the  original  plan  of  going  to  Bethsaida 
was  carried   out  because  of  the   healing  of  the  blind  man 
there  before  the  journey   north  to  Caesarea  Philippi  (Mark 
viii.  22-26). 


DURING  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE  TWELVE     49 

as  to  the  Persean  ministry.  It  also  fills  the  gap 
in  time  which  the  absence  of  ten  of  the  Twelve 
requires  by  a  sufficient  amount  of  active  ministry 
of  Jesus  to  satisfy  all  conditions  of  the  problem. 
It  also  explains  the  movements  of  Jesus  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  perils  of  His  position,  and 
enables  us  to  see  how  the  crisis  is  brought  on 
which  finally  removes  every  reason  for  caution 
and  justifies  Him  in  making  a  distinct  announce- 
ment of  His  Messiahship.  Thus  He  secures  His 
definite  acceptance  as  Messiah  by  His  chief  dis- 
ciples, and  is  enabled  to  give  them  a  clear  warn- 
ing of  His  impending  death  and  resurrection  just 
before  He  makes  His  last  journey  to  Jerusalem, 
to  the  cross  and  the  crown. 


HOW   MANY   AND   WHAT   FEASTS   DID   JESUS 
ATTEND? 

THE  Synoptists  mention  only  one  feast 
which  Jesus  attended,  the  Passover,  in 
connection  with  which  He  was  crucified.  John's 
Gospel  also  mentions  this  Passover,  but  there  is 
a  grave  difference  between  John  and  the  Synop- 
tists as  to  the  day  of  the  crucifixion,  whether  it 
occurred  on  the  day  of  the  Passover,  or  the  day 
before.  The  discussion  of  this  difference  I  shall 
reserve  for  the  present. 

It  may  also  be  said  that  another  earlier  Pass- 
over is  implied  in  the  story  of  the  plucking  and 
eating  ripe  grain.1  The  public  ministry  of  Jesus 
according  to  the  Synoptists  might  thus  be  em- 
braced in  a  period  of  a  little  more  than  a  year. 

But  the  Gospel  of  John  mentions  several 
feasts  : 

1.  Passover,  John  ii.  13. 

2.  A  feast  unnamed,  John  v.  1. 

3.  Passover,  John  vi.  4. 


1  Mark  ii.  23-28  ;  Luke  vi.  1-5  ;  Matt.  xii.  1-8.     See  p.  14. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       51 

4.  Tabernacles,  John  vii.  2. 

5.  Dedication,  John  x.  22. 

6.  Passover,  John  xi.  55. 

If  the  narrative  of  John  be  chronological,  we 
have  three  Passovers  defined,  which  gives  us  a 
ministry  of  two  years  and  upward.  The  feast 
undefined 1  is  regarded  as  a  Passover  by  Robin- 
son. This  would  make  a  ministry  of  three  years 
and  upward.  But  though  a  pupil  of  Robinson 
and  his  successor,  following  him  for  many 
years  in  this  opinion,  I  can  no  longer  hold  it. 
All  the  other  feasts  are  defined  in  this  Gospel. 
We  might  say  that  the  author  who  left  this  feast 
undefined  most  probably  did  not  know  which 
one  it  was.  The  argument  of  Robinson  is  based 
on  the  Hebrew  usage  of  making  the  noun  defi- 
nite by  the  construct  relation  which  is  repre- 
sented in  Greek  by  the  genitive.2  This  usage 
must  be  recognized  as  a  possibility ;  but  it  is  by 
no  means  certain  in  this  case.  The  Sinaitic 
codex  of  the  Gospel  gives  the  definite  article  with 
the  principal  noun.  But  this  cannot  be  given 
much  weight  over  against  the  absence  of  the 
article  in  the  other  great  Uncials  of  the  New 
Testament. 


1  John  v.  1.  *  Robinson's  Harmony,  pp.  190  seq. 


52         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

But  even  if  we  had  sufficient  evidence  that 
this  feast  was  made  definite  by  the  article,  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  it  was  the  Passover.  All 
the  examples  given  by  Robinson  in  which  the 
feast  refers  to  the  Passover  are  in  a  context  in 
which  the  Passover  had  been  already  mentioned. 
He  gives  no  example  in  which  the  feast,  at  the 
beginning  of  a  narrative,  by  itself,  stands  for  the 
Passover ;  and  even  if  a  few  instances  could  be 
given,  it  would  not  prove  that  it  must  always  be 
so,  or  that  it  was  certainly  so  in  this  particular 
case.  It  is  true  that  Ireneeus,  Eusebius,  Theo- 
doret,  and  other  early  writers  held  that  this  feast 
was  a  Passover.  But  Tatian,  Jerome,  Cyril, 
Chrysostom  held  it  to  be  Pentecost,  and  so 
Erasmus,  Calvin,  Beza,  Bengel,  and  others.  The 
feast  of  Purim  was  first  suggested  by  Kepler, 
who  has  been  followed  by  many  modern  scholars 
such  as  Neander,  Olshausen,  Tholuck,  Meyer, 
and  Lange.  Under  these  circumstances  we  may 
say  that  the  text  does  not  determine  the  ques- 
tion. We  must  decide  upon  other  grounds  if  at 
all.  It  seems  to  be  most  probable  that  it  was 
Pentecost.1 

We  have  now  to  consider  the    other  feasts. 


1  See  p.  25. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       53 

Can  we  be  sure  that  the  three  Passovers  men- 
tioned were  all  different  Passovers  ?  Can  we  be 
sure  that  the  narrative  of  John's  Gospel  is  chron- 
ological ?  Tatian  did  not  think  so,  for  he  puts 
the  cleansing  of  the  temple  and  the  interview  of 
Jesus  with  Nicodemus  at  the  last  Passover.  The 
Synoptists  all  place  the  cleansing  of  the  temple 
at  the  last  Passover,  and  that  is  for  many  rea- 
sons the  most  probable  time  of  its  occurrence. 
Jesus  would  not  have  forced  the  issue  between 
Himself  and  the  Sanhedrim,  at  the  beginning  of 
His  ministry  in  Jerusalem,  when,  even  according 
to  John,  He  prudentially  postponed  the  crisis  as 
long  as  possible. 

It  is  altogether  improbable  that  this  violent 
and  revolutionary  act  was  repeated.  The  story  of 
the  interview  with  Nicodemus  is  certainly  given 
in  John  too  early  in  the  development  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  Moreover  the  narrative  itself 
implies  many  miracles.1  But  the  only  miracle 
recorded  prior  to  this  narrative  is  the  one  at  the 
marriage  feast  at  Cana,  which  certainly  Nico- 
demus and  the  Jerusalemites  had  not  witnessed, 
and  which  they  could  only  have  heard  of  by  rumor 
if  at  all,  and  which  therefore  could  not  have  had 


1  John  ii.  23,  iii.  2. 


54        NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

any  great  influence  upon  a  man  like  Nicodemus, 
or  have  won  the  faith  of  any  of  the  people  of 
Jerusalem. 

The  interview  with  Nicodemus  seems  to  have 
occurred  at  an  earlier  date  than  the  last  Pass- 
over, but  not  at  so  early  a  time  as  the  order  of 
John's  Gospel  would  imply,  if  its  order  be  re- 
garded as  chronological.  These  two  incidents 
are  placed  here  by  the  author  of  John's  Gospel 
for  topical  reasons. 

The  Passover  of  John  vi.  4,  which  was  said  to 
be  * '  at  hand  "  at  the  time  of  the  Feeding  of  the 
multitude,  was  not  a  third  intermediate  Pass- 
over, but  the  last  Passover ;  for  it  was  immedi- 
ately after  the  Feeding  of  the  multitude,  and 
soon  after  this  event  Jesus  goes  up  to  Jerusalem 
to  His  last  Passover  as  we  have  seen.1 

Accordingly  the  three  Passovers  of  John's 
Gospel  are  not  different  Passovers,  but  one  and 
the  same  Passover,  and  thus  the  supposed  differ- 
ences between  John  and  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
in  this  respect,  disappear.  There  were  but  two 
Passovers  which  Jesus  attended,  and  His  min- 
istry may  be  embraced  in  less  than  two  years. 

The  Gospel  of  John  mentions  the  Feast  of 

1  See  p.  47. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       55 

Tabernacles,1  and  the  Feast  of  Dedication.2  The 
Feast  of  Dedication  was  not,  to  use  modern 
ecclesiastical  terms,  a  feast  of  obligation.  But 
the  Feast  of  Pentecost  was  one  of  the  three 
feasts  of  obligation  for  which  every  pious  Jew 
went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  worship.  It  is  improb- 
able that  Jesus  would  violate  the  Law.  The 
unnamed  Feast3  was  probably  just  this  feast.  If 
this  be  so,  the  Feasts  recorded  in  John's  Gospel 
give  us  a  framework  for  the  ministry  of  Jesus 
between  the  two  Passovers — John  v.  1  gives  us 
Pentecost,  John  vii.  2  Tabernacles,  John  x.  22 
Dedication.  I  have  already  shown  that  Mark  ii. 
23-28,  Luke  vi.  1-5,  Matt.  xii.  1-8,  imply  a 
Passover  just  past,  and  that  Jesus  probably  be- 
gan His  ministry  soon  after  the  previous  Feast 
of  Tabernacles.4 

We  have  then  the  following  framework  for 
the  life  of  Jesus : 

1.  Tabernacles,  October. 

2.  Passover,  April. 

3.  Pentecost,  June. 

4.  Tabernacles,  October. 

5.  Dedication,  December. 

6.  Passover,  April. 


1  John  vii.  2.       2  John  x.  22.       3  John  v.  1.       *  See  p.  16. 


56         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

I  have  shown  that  the  first  Galilean  ministry 
and  the  earlier  Judasan  ministry  were  prior  to  the 
first  Passover.1  I  have  also  shown  that  the  se- 
lection and  the  sending  forth  of  the  Twelve  and 
all  the  related  material  of  the  Galilean  ministry 
belong  prior  to  the  Jerusalem  ministry,  at  Tab- 
ernacles and  Dedication,  and  also  prior  to  the 
Peraean  ministry  of  Luke  and  John.2  The  jour- 
ney to  Jerusalem  at  Pentecost  alone  interrupts 
the  Galilean  ministry.  I  have  shown  that  the 
journey  through  Samaria  of  John  iv.  is  out  of 
its  historical  order  and  really  was  subsequent 
to  Dedication ;  and  that  Jesus  then  makes  His 
last  journey  to  Galilee,  goes  northward  to  Phoa- 
nicia,  then  to  the  Northern  Decapolis,  and  meets 
His  disciples  at  Bethsaida  just  prior  to  the  Feed- 
ing of  the  multitudes ;  and  that  this  was  just 
before  the  last  Passover.3  So  soon  as  we  aban- 
don the  opinion  that  the  order  of  John's  Gospel 
is  chronological,  the  separate  incidents  may  all 
be  arranged  in  a  simple  and  natural  harmony  on 
the  framework  of  the  Feasts  as  given  above. 

There  remains  to  be  considered  the  discrepan- 
cy between  John  and  the  Synoptists  as  to  the 
last  Passover.  Mark  states  that  "  on  the  first 


1  See  p.  13  seq.  *  See  p.  21  seq.  3  See  p.  45. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       57 

day  of  unleavened  bread,  when  they  sacrificed 
the  Passover,"  the  disciples  were  instructed  to 
make  ready  to  eat  the  Passover,  and  that  they 
made  ready  the  Passover  in  the  guest  chamber 
to  which  Jesus  directed  them.1  The  natural 
implication  from  this  is  that  they  not  only  se- 
cured a  chamber  for  the  Paschal  meal,  but  also 
made  the  sacrifice  of  the  Paschal  lamb  in  the 
temple  according  to  the  Law,  and  prepared  the 
flesh  with  the  unleavened  bread  and  the  bitter 
herbs  and  the  wine  prescribed  for  the  meal ;  and 
that  therefore,  when  it  was  evening,2  Jesus  and 
His  disciples  ate  the  Paschal  lamb  prior  to  the 
institution  of  the  Lord's  supper.3  Matthew4  evi- 
dently depends  upon  Mark  as  its  source  ;  for  it 
condenses  the  statement  of  Mark5  into  three 
verses,6  making  it  more  evident  that  Jesus  Him- 
self selected  the  place  of  the  meal. 

Luke 7  tells  us  that  it  was  Peter  and  John  who 
made  these  preparations.  He  probably  had 
another  source  of  information  as  to  this  event 
than  Mark.  He  also  puts  the  statement  of  time 
in  a  different  form.  "And  the  day  of  unleavened 


1  Mark  xiv.  12-16.  2  Mark  xiv.  17. 

3  Mark  xiv.  18-25.  *  Matt.  xxvi.  17-36. 

5  Mark  xiv.  12-16.  6  Matt.  xxvi.  17-19. 

7  Luke  xxii.  7-13. 


58         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

bread  came,  on  which  the  Passover  must  be  sacri- 
ficed."1 The  difficulty  with  these  statements  of 
the  Synoptists  is  that  they  do  not  altogether 
conform  to  the  law  of  the  Passover. 

That  law2  puts  the  sacrifice  of  the  Passover 
on  the  fourteenth  of  the  first  month  between  the 
evenings,  probably  between  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  and  sundown.  The  feast  of  unleavened 
bread  begins  on  the  fifteenth  of  the  month,  and 
continues  for  a  week  until  the  twenty-first.  The 
first  day  was  a  great  sabbath  of  holy  convoca- 
tion, the  first  of  the  seven  great  sabbaths,  while 
the  seventh  or  last  day  of  the  Feast  was  the 
second  great  sabbath.  The  Hebrew  day  began 
with  sunset,  the  fifteenth  day  began  with  night- 
fall of  the  fourteenth,  and  on  that  evening  the 
Paschal  lamb  was  eaten.  How,  then,  can  the 
Synoptists  say  that  the  Jews  were  accustomed 
to  sacrifice  the  Passover  on  the  first  day  of  un- 
leavened bread  ? 

It  might  be  said  that  the  eating  of  the  Pas- 
chal sacrifice  was  on  that  day ;  but  not  the  sacri- 
fice itself.  We  might  say  that  the  author  uses 
sacrifice  in  the  sense  of  eating  of  the  victim. 


1  Luke  xxii.  7. 

2  Ex.  xii.  2  seq;  Lev.  xxiii.  5  ;  Num.  xxviii.  16  seq. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       59 

But  then  how  could  the  preparation  be  made  on 
that  day?  Indeed  it  seems  rather  late  in  a 
crowded  city  to  postpone  all  preparations  until 
the  very  day  of  the  sacrifice.  The  lamb  must  be 
selected  according  to  the  Law  on  the  tenth  day, 
that  is  four  days  before  the  sacrifice.1  This 
selection  could  hardly  have  been  neglected.  It 
is  indeed  quite  possible  that  the  casting  of  the 
traders  out  of  the  temple  on  the  tenth  day  was 
due  to  an  attempt  to  defraud  His  disciples  in  the 
purchase  of  the  Paschal  lamb.2 

Dr.  Robinson  urges  that  "it  was  customary 
for  the  Jews,  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  Nisan, 
to  cease  from  labor  at  or  before  midday ;  and  to 
put  away  all  leaven  out  of  their  houses  before 
noon ;  and  to  slay  the  Paschal  lamb  toward  the 
close  of  the  day.  Hence,  in  popular  usage,  the 
fourteenth  day  came  very  naturally  to  be  reckoned 
as  the  beginning  or  first  day  of  the  festival  ;— 
and  Joseph  us  could  say  that  the  festival  was  cel- 
ebrated for  eight  days." 3  This  argument  is  that 
the  Gospels  are  using  popular  rather  than  legal 
language. 

This  is  possible  and  might  be  accepted,  were 


1  Ex.  xii.  3.  2  See  p.  103. 

3  Harmony  Appendix  Pt.  VIII.  iii.;  Josephus  B.  J.  iii.   1  ; 
Ant.  XI.  iv.  8  ;  ii.  15.  1. 


60         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

it  not  for  the  statement  of  the  Gospel  of  John 
which  implies  that  Jesus  did  not  eat  the  Passover 
with  His  disciples,  but  was  crucified  on  the  day  of 
the  Passover. 

(1)  John1  states  that  the  great   farewell  dis- 
course of  Jesus  took  place  before  the  Passover. 

(2)  The   Jews   on   the  day   of  the  arrest  and 
crucifixion  "  entered  not  into  the  judgment  hall 
that  they  might  not  be  defiled,  but  might  eat  the 
Passover."*      This   implies   that   they   ate  the 
Passover  the  night  of  the  crucifixion  and  not  be- 
fore. 

(3)  The  preparation  of  the  Passover  on  the  day 
of  crucifixion 3  implies  that  it  was  the  day  before 
the  Paschal  meal. 

(4)"  The  preparation  .  .  .  for  the  day  of  that 
sabbath  was  a  high  day"*  implies  the  fifteenth 
of  Nisan,  the  great  sabbath  of  the  first  day  of 
unleavened  bread,  on  the  morrow  after  the  death 
of  Jesus  ;  and  the  connection  of  the  great  sab- 
bath with  the  weekly  sabbath. 

(5)  It  may  also  be  urged  that  the  supposition 
that  Judas  went  forth  just  prior  to  the  Lord's 
supper  to  buy  what  things  they  had  need  of  for 


1   John  xiii.  1.  2  Johiixviii.  28. 

3  John  xix.  14.  *  John  xix.  31. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       61 

the  feast"  l  refers  to  the  need  of  the  Paschal 
meal  the  next  evening,  and  that  the  meeting  of 
the  Sanhedrim  to  condemn  Jesus  was  unlawful 
on  the  sabbath  and  great  festival  days. 

All  this  makes  it  evident  that  John  repre- 
sents that  Jesus  was  crucified  on  the  day  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Paschal  lamb,  and  that  He  did 
not  in  fact  eat  the  Passover  with  His  disciples, 
but  instituted  the  Lord's  supper  at  an  ordinary 
meal  the  evening  before.  This  is  doubtless  more 
suited  to  the  conception  of  Jesus  as  Himself  the 
Paschal  lamb,  offered  at  the  legal  time;  and 
may  also  be  at  the  basis  of  Paul's  conception 
that  Jesus  Himself  is  "  our  Passover"*  These 
several  statements  of  the  Gospel  of  John  are 
much  stronger  than  the  single  statement  of  the 
Synoptists,  which  has,  as  we  have  seen,  its  in- 
trinsic difficulties.  The  error  is  probably  in  the 
Synoptists.  Is  it  a  real  error  or  only  an  apparent 
one,  and  is  it  possible  of  adjustment? 

Resch  gives,  as  in  the  original  Hebrew  Gospel 
upon  which  the  Gospels  depend,  nosn  D'lp'n,  which 
would  yield  the  translation,  before  the  Passover? 
If,  however,  it  were  read  mpa,  taking  it  as  adjec- 
tive, we  would  get  the  rendering :  on  the  first 


1  John  xiii.  27-30.  2   1  Cor.  v.  7. 

3  Resch,  Die  Logia  Jesu.     1898.  s.  184. 


62         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

day  of  the  Passover.  The  variation  of  Luke 
from  Mark  here  is  less  important.  The  question 
is  as  to  the  original  of  Mark.  If  the  original 
Mark  was  Hebrew,  did  it  read  as  Delitzsch 
gives  it,  rranan  snb  'piBinn,  or  as  Resell  suggests, 
no&n  oipfc,  or  mfcfcn  Dips,  or  simply  nmjn  Dip. 
The  technical  language  is  doubtless  that  given 
by  Delitzsch,  but  that  technical  language  applies 
to  the  fifteenth  of  the  month,  the  day  after  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Passover,  and  could  not  there- 
fore be  used  in  popular  language  for  the  day  be- 
fore. It  is  therefore  much  more  probable  that 
in  the  more  popular  language  Dip  would  be  used. 
If  so  Dip,  as  written  without  vowel  points,  might 
be  interpreted  either  as  a  preposition,  before, 
or  as  an  adjective,  first.  There  is  probably  an 
error  of  interpretation  of  the  Hebrew  Mark  by  the 
Greek  Mark  at  the  basis  of  the  entire  difficulty. 
If  we  interpret  the  original  as  a  preposition  and 
render :  "  before  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread, 
when  they  sacrificed  the  Passover,  His  disciples 
say  unto  Him,"  the  difficulty  disappears  ;  for  the 
feast  of  unleavened  bread  is  used  in  the  general 
sense  as  comprehending  the  entire  Passover,  as  is 
explained  indeed  by  Luke  ;*  and  before  that  feast 


1  Luke  xxii.  1. 


HOW  MANY  FEASTS  DID  JESUS  ATTEND?       63 

is  before  the  first  event  of  the  feast,  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Paschal  lamb,  and  therefore  the  day  be- 
fore that  sacrifice,  the  thirteenth  of  Nisan. 

This  is  confirmed  by  the  statement  of  Mark 1 
that  Judas  arranged  with  the  Sanhedrim  to  be- 
tray Jesus  two  days  before  the  Passover,  that  is 
the  twelfth  of  Nisan.  The  language  of  Mark 
would  most  naturally  refer  to  the  following  day, 
the  thirteenth  of  Nisan,  and  D^ip  thus  stands  for 
the  day  before  Passover. 

In  this  way  all  difficulty  disappears,  and  we 
may  follow  with  confidence  John's  representa- 
tion that  Jesus  was  offered  up  as  the  Paschal 
lamb  on  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan,  and  that  the 
Jews  celebrated  the  Passover  meal  while  Jesus 
was  lying  in  the  grave.  Thus  the  statement  of 
John2  that  the  scripture  "  a  bone  of  kirn  shall  not 
be  broken  "  was  fulfilled,  in  the  neglect  of  the 
soldiers  to  break  his  legs,  as  they  did  the  legs  of 
those  crucified  with  him  ;  and  the  statement  of 
St.  Paul  that  Jesus  Himself  is  "  our  Passover" 3 
were  based  on  the  event  itself  of  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  as  the  Paschal  sacrifice. 


1  Mark  xiv.  1.  2  John  xix.  36.  *  1  Cor.  v.  7. 


VI 

THE    PEILEAN   MINISTRY 

THE  only  reference  to  the  Persean  ministry  in 
Mark  is  placed  subsequent  to  the  Gali- 
lean ministry: 1  "And  He  arose  from  thence,  and 
cometh  into  the  borders  of  Judaea  and  beyond 
Jordan :  and  multitudes  come  together  unto  him 
again;  and,  as  he  was  wont,  he  taught  them 
again"  This  is  given  in  essentially  the  same 
form  in  Matthew.2  It  is  in  connection  with  the 
final  journey  to  Jerusalem  by  the  valley  of  the 
Jordan  through  Perasa.  The  ministry  could  have 
been  but  brief,  a  few  days  only.  The  journey 
corresponds  with  the  journey  reported  by  Luke  :3 
"And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  were  on  the  way 
to  Jerusalem,  that  He  was  passing  between41 
Samaria  and  Galilee. "  It  is  often  identified  by 
harmonists  with  the  earlier  journey  mentioned 
by  Luke,5  but  that  is  altogether  improbable. 


1  Mark  x.  1.  3  Matt.  xix.  1,  2.  3  Luke  xvii.  11. 

4  So  Revised  Version  margin,  which  is  preferred  to  through 
the  midst  of  in  the  text. 

5  Luke  ix.  51. 


THE  PER^AN  MINISTRY  65 

The  material  given  by  Mark  in  this  connection 
is  the  following : 

1.  The  Question  of  the  Pharisees  concerning 
Divorce. 1 

2.  The  Blessing  of  Little  Children.2 

3.  The  Counsel  of  Perfection.3 

4.  An  Announcement  of  His  Death  and  Res- 
urrection.4 

5.  Rebuke  of  the   Ambition  of  James    and 
John.5 

The  next  incident  is  the  healing  of  the  blind 
man  near  Jericho  in  Judaea.  These  events  are  in 
this  same  order  in  all  of  the  Synoptists,  and  it  is 
probably  correct.  Luke  gives  in  addition,  prior 
to  (2)  and  evidently  before  the  arrival  in  Perasa: 

(a)  the  Healing  of  the  Lepers,6 

(6)  the  Discourse  as  to  the  Advent  of  the 
Kingdom,7 

(c)  the  Parable  of  the  Unjust  Judge,8 

(cT)  the  Parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the 
Publican.9 


1  Mark  x.  2-12;   Matt.  xix.  3-12. 

2  Markx.  13-16;  Matt.  xix.  13-15;  Luke  xviii.  15-17. 

3  Mark  x.  17-31  ;  Matt.  xix.  l6-xx.  16  ;  Luke  xviii.  18-30. 

4  Mark  x.  32-34- ;  Matt.  xx.  17-19  ;  Luke  xviii.  31-34. 

5  Mark  x.  35-45  ;  Matt.  xx.  20-28. 

6  Luke  xvii.  11-19-  7  Luke  xvii.  20-37. 
8  Luke  xviii.  1-8.  '  Luke  xviii.  9-14. 


66         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

(a)  and  (b)  are  probably  in  their  proper  place, 
although  the  greater  part  of  the  material  of  (b)  is 
combined  by  Matthew  xxiv.  with  the  great  es- 
chatological  discourse  in  Jerusalem.  The  two 
parables  (c)  and  (rf),  given  only  by  Luke,  have  a 
topical  propriety  here  as  subsequent  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  Pharisees  as  to  the  kingdom,  and  it 
may  be  that  they  are  in  their  historical  place. 
But  we  cannot  be  sure  of  it. 

The  Gospel  of  John,  however,  gives  us  an 
earlier  Perasan  ministry:  "And  lie  went  away 
again  beyond  Jordan  into  the  place  where  John 
was  at  the  first  baptizing ;  and  there  he  abode. 
And  many  came  unto  him;  and  they  said,  John  in- 
deed did  no  sign :  but  all  things  whatsoever  John 
spake  of  this  man  were  true.  And  many  believed 
on  him  there.1  This  cannot  be  identified  with 
the  Pereean  ministry  above-mentioned.  It  was 
a  prior  ministry  in  Peraea  unknown  to  Mark  and 
Matthew.  This  ministry  was  subsequent  to  the 
feast  of  Dedication.  It  was  from  Persea  that 
Jesus  came  to  Jerusalem  to  raise  Lazarus  from 
the  dead.2  In  the  above  statement  of  John  3  the 
word  again  implies  a  visit  to  Peraea  prior  to  this, 


1  John  x.  40-42.  2  John  xi.  6,  7. 

8  John  x.  40. 


THE  PERM  AN  MINISTRY  67 

that  is  before  the  feast  of  Dedication,  probably 
between  Tabernacles  and  Dedication. 

When  now  we  turn  to  Luke  we  find  a  Peraan 
ministry  of  considerable  extent,  which  may  be 
assigned  in  part  to  the  earlier  ministry  suggested 
by  John,  and  in  part  to  the  later  ministry  stated 
by  John.  As  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  chap- 
ter the  Seventy  were  sent  forth  on  a  mission  to 
Peraea  in  advance  of  Jesus  Himself.  They  were 
probably  sent  from  Jerusalem  after  the  feast 
of  Tabernacles.  Jesus  followed  in  their  foot- 
steps. These  two  ministries  of  Jesus  in  Persea 
are  distinguished  also  in  Luke,  for  he  tells  of  a 
journey  toward  Jerusalem,1  which  probably 
corresponds  with  the  journey  to  the  feast  of 
Dedication.  To  the  earlier  ministry  in  Perasa 
we  may  assign  the  greater  part  of  what  Luke 
gives  prior  to  this  journey,  namely  : 

1.  The  question  as  to  prayer  and  the  giving 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  This  was  appropriate  in 
the  scene  of  the  Baptist's  ministry,  for  Jesus  is 
asked  to  teach  His  disciples  to  pray  as  John  also 
taught  his  disciples.  The  incident  is  accompan- 
ied by  an  appropriate  parable  and  a  logion.2 
The  logion  and  the  prayer  are  given  out  of  place 


Luke  xiii.  22.  *  Luke  xi.  1-13. 


68         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

by  Matthew,  attached   to  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount. 

2.  The  casting  out  of  a  demon  from  a  dumb 
man. l  This  is  given  by  Matthew 2  at  an  earlier 
date.  But  Luke's  order  is  most  probable. 

This  is  followed  by  a  warning  against  evil 
spirits  and  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit,3  which 
is  given  in  Mark 4  in  connection  with  an  earlier 
event,  but  evidently  for  topical  reasons,  as  Mark 
does  not  give  the  healing  of  the  demoniac, 
which  is  the  natural  basis  for  the  discourse. 
This  is  followed  in  both  Luke 5  and  Matthew  6 
by  the  demand  for  a  sign  and  the  mention  of  the 
sign  of  Jonah,  which  are  given  here  out  of  place 
for  topical  reasons.  It  is  probably  the  same  as  the 
demand  for  a  sign  at  the  close  of  the  Galilean 
ministry,  just  before  the  last  journey  to  Jerusa- 
lem, and  therefore  too  early.  Luke7  inserts  the 
incident  of  the  woman  pronouncing  the  mother 
of  Jesus  blessed,  which  doubtless  belongs  here. 
But  Luke 8  gives  a  series  of  logia  given  by  Mat- 
thew in  part  in  his  version  of  the  Sermon  on  the 


1  Luke  xi.  14.  *  Matt.  xii.  22,  23. 

s  Luke  xi.  15-26  ;  Matt.  xii.  24-32,  43-45. 

*  Mark  iii.  19-30.  5  Luke  xi.  29-32. 

6  Matt.  xii.  38-42.  7  Luke  xi.  27,  28. 

8  Luke  xi.  33-36. 


THE  PERMAN  MINISTRY  69 

Mount,  and  in  part  by  Luke1  and  Mark2  on 
another  occasion.  So  also  Matthew8  gives 
logia  not  in  Luke.  These  logia  were  all  derived 
from  the  Logia  of  Matthew  and  are  given  by  both 
evangelists  in  these  places  for  topical  reasons. 

3.  Jesus    breakfasts    with   a   Pharisee,4   when 
there  is  a  discussion  as  to  ceremonial  purification 
before  meals ;  which  reminds  us  of  a  similar  dis- 
cussion in  Mark 6  and  Matthew.6     There  it  was 
the  disciples  who  were  challenged,  here   Jesus 
Himself.     The  former  was  at  the  close  of  the 
Galilean  ministry,  the  latter  is  given  by  Luke 
here.     It  is  possible  that  they  are   variant  tra- 
ditions of  the  same  event.     If  so,  Luke,  for  top- 
ical reasons,  has  given  it  out  of  place  as  an  in- 
troduction to  the  woes  pronounced  against  the 
Pharisees T  which  are  given  by  Matthew  in  con- 
nection with  the  struggle  with  the  Pharisees  in 
Jerusalem  in  Passion  week. 

4.  This  is  followed  by  a  warning  against  the 
Pharisees,8  which  may  be  in  place.     But  it  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  series  of  logia,9  given  by  Matthew 
and  Mark  and  even  Luke  himself  elsewhere — 
thus  doubtless  in  all  cases  for  topical  reasons. 

1   Luke  viii.  16.  2  Mark  iv.  21.  3  Matt.  xii.  36,  37. 

4  Luke  xi.  37-39.       5  Mark  vii.  1-23.      6  Matt.  xv.  1-20. 
7  Luke  xi,  42-54.       8  Luke  xii.  1.  9  Luke  xii.  2-12. 


70         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

5.  Next   comes   the   request   of  a   man  that 
Jesus  may  intercede  with  his  brother  as  to  his 
inheritance.1     This   is  followed  by   the   parable 
of  the  rich  fool,2  which  very  probably  belongs 
here.     To  it  are  attached  kindred  logia,3  given 
by  Matthew  in  his  version  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  followed  by  parables,4  given  by  Matthew 
in  connection  with  the  great  eschatological  dis- 
course ;  and  a  series  of  logia 6  given  by  Matthew 
in  three   different   connections.     These   are   all 
given  here  for  topical  reasons,  and  have  no  spe- 
cial propriety  at  this  time  rather  than  another.6 

6.  The  reference  to   the   Galileans   slain   by 
Pilate  in  Jerusalem,  with  the  parable  of  the  fig 
tree,7  probably  belongs  here. 

7.  The  healing  of  the  woman  with  an  infirmity 
in  a  synagogue  on  the  Sabbath  8  is  also  probably 
in  its  proper  historical  place.     To  this  the  para- 
bles of  the  grain  of  mustard  seed  and  the  leaven 
are   added,9  given   by    Matthew  in    connection 
with  his  collection  of  the  parables  of  the  kingdom. 

All  of  this  material  is  given  by  Luke  prior 
to  the  journey  to  Jerusalem,  which  was  to  the 


1  Luke  xii.  13-15.   2  Luke  xii.  16-21.   8  Luke  xii.  22-34. 
4  Luke  xii.  35-48.   5  Luke  xii.  49-59- 

6  Certainly  verses  35-53  seem  to  be  too  early. 

7  Luke  xiii.  1-9.          8  Luke  xiii.  10-17.     9  Luke  xiii.  18-21. 


THE  PERMAN  MINISTRY  71 

feast  of  Dedication,  according  to  the  Gospel  of 
John.1 

The  logia  and  the  parables — many  of  them  at 
least — were  attached  to  the  incidents  for  topical 
reasons,  and  do  not  belong  there  historically. 

The  first  period  of  the  Persean  ministry  closes 
with  the  journey  to  the  feast  of  Dedication.2 
To  this  Luke  attaches  logia3  in  reply  to  a  ques- 
tion :  "  Are  they  few  that  be  saved?"  which  seem 
appropriate  here,  although  given  by  Matthew  in 
part  in  his  version  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
but  in  part  also  in  several  other  connections.4 

Here  Luke  attaches  the  warning  given  by  the 
Pharisees  against  Herod,  which  seems  quite 
appropriate  in  Peraea.5  To  this  is  attached  a 
lament  over  Jerusalem,6  given  by  Matthew7  in 
Jerusalem  itself,  during  Passion  week.  This 
lament  implies  several  previous  visits  to  Jerusa- 
lem and  a  final  visit.  It  is  out  of  place,  there- 
fore, in  connection  with  a  visit  to  the  feast  of 
Dedication  followed  by  another  visit  for  the 
raising  of  Lazarus  before  the  final  journey.  It 


1  See  p.  56.  f  Luke  xiii.  22.  8  Luke  xiii.  23-30. 

*  Matt.  viii.  11,  12,  xiii.  42,  50,  xix.  30,  xx.  16,  xxiv.  51, 
xxv.  30. 

5  Luke  xiii.  31-33.  •  Luke  xiii.  34,  35. 

T  Matt,  xxiii.  37-39. 


72         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

is  equally  out  of  place   in    both    Matthew  and 
Luke. 

The  second  period  of  the  Persean  ministry  was 
a  brief  one,  as  it  was  all  included  in  the  short 
time  between  the  feast  of  Dedication  and  the 
raising  of  Lazarus.  The  only  incident  men- 
tioned probably  belongs  here. 

1.  We  have  first  the  sabbath  meal  with  a  chief 
Pharisee  when  Jesus  heals  a  man  with  dropsy,1 
to  which  is  appended  the  parable  of  the  chief 
places  at  the  marriage  feast,2  peculiar  to  Luke, 
with  the  associated  logia;3  and  the  parable  of 
the  marriage  feast,4  given  by  Matthew5  in  Pas- 
sion week  in  Jerusalem.     The  connection  is  cer- 
tainly more  appropriate  in  Luke. 

2.  A  series  of  logia,6  spoken  by  Jesus  to  His 
disciples,  as  to  counting  the  cost,  some  given  by 
Matthew  and  Mark,  and  even  Luke  himself  in 
other  connections. 

3.  Three  parables  of  saving  the  lost,  in  justifi- 
cation of  His  receiving  sinners  and  eating  with 
them,  against  the  murmurs  of  the  Pharisees.7 
The  parable  of  the  lost  sheep  is  given  by  Mat- 


1  Luke  xiv.  1—6.  z  Luke  xiv.  7-10. 

3  Luke  xiv.  11-14-.  4  Luke  xiv.  15-24. 

5  Matt.  xxii.  1-10.  6  Luke  xiv.  25-35. 
7  Luke  xv. 


THE  PER^AN  MINISTRY  73 

thew *  at  a  later  date.     The  other  two  are  pecul- 
iar to  Luke. 

4.  Then   follow  the    parables  of  the    shrewd 
steward,  and  of  Dives  and  Lazarus,2  with  inter- 
vening logia,  given  by  Matthew  in  his  version  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  elsewhere. 

5.  Next  come 3  logia  to  the  disciples,  given  by 
Matthew,4  and  Mark,5  at  a  later  date ;  and  a  par- 
able peculiar  to  Luke.     The  material  given  here 
is  indeed,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  heal- 
ing of  the  man  with  the  dropsy,  entirely  teach- 
ing.    Some  of  it  is  evidently  out  of  place,  al- 
though a  large  amount  of  it  is  quite  appropriate 
in  the  connection  given  it  by  Luke. 

We  have  sufficient  evidence  that  the  Persean 
ministry  was  divided  into  three  periods,  and  that 
the  Seventy  preceded  Jesus  in  His  work  during 
the  first  period.  It  is  probable  that  the  Seventy 
continued  their  work  until  Jesus'  last  visit,  when 
they  joined  Him  for  His  journey  to  Jerusalem 
for  the  last  Passover.  The  material  given  by 
Luke  in  these  chapters  is  not  in  Mark,  whom  he 
follows  closely  in  the  main  so  far  as  he  goes. 
This  material  is  composed  of:  (1)  Logia  derived 


1  Matt,  xviii.  12-14.          2  Luke  xvi.  s  Luke  xvii.  1-10. 

*  Matt,  xviii.  6,  7,  15,  21,  22.  6  Mark  ix.  42. 


74         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

from  the  Logia  of  Matthew.  These  logia  are  in 
Luke  attached  to  parables  and  historical  inci- 
dents. In  Matthew's  Gospel  they  are  for  the 
most  part  gathered  about  the  four  discourses— 
(a)  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,1  (b)  The  Com- 
mission of  the  Twelve,2  (c)  The  Woes  upon 
the  Pharisees,3  (d)  The  Eschatological  Dis- 
course.4 On  the  whole  their  location  in  Luke  is 
more  appropriate  than  in  Matthew,  but  as  we 
have  seen,  we  must  regard  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  them  as  in  topical  rather  than  chronologi- 
cal place  in  Luke  also. 

(2)  The  parables  may  be  divided  into  two 
groups,  those  common  with  Matthew  and  those 
peculiar  to  Luke.  Those  common  with  Matthew 
are  given  by  Matthew  chiefly  in  its  groups  of 
parables,  either — (a)  Parables  of  the  kingdom, 
at  the  sea.5  (b)  In  teaching  the  disciples.6  (c) 
In  conflict  with  the  Pharisees  in  Jerusalem.7 
(d)  Appended  to  the  eschatological  discourse.8 

These  parables  are  so  different  in  Luke,  in 
structure  and  detail,  from  the  version  of  Mat- 
thew that  it  is  impossible  to  think  that  they  were 
derived  from  a  common  written  source.  They 

1  Chaps,  v.-vii.  2  Chap.  x.  3  Chap,  xxiii. 

4  Chaps,  xxiv.,  xxv.         5  Chap.  xiii.  6  Chaps,  xviii.,  xx. 

7  Chaps,  xxi.,  xxii.  8  Chaps,  xxiv.,  xxv. 


THE  PERM  AN  MINISTRY  75 

must  have  come  from  different  oral  sources  with 
varying  details.  Here  again  the  connections  in 
which  they  are  given  by  Luke  are  more  natural 
than  those  in  which  they  are  given  by  Matthew; 
although  we  cannot  ignore  the  probability  that 
topical  reasons  influenced  Luke  also  rather  than 
chronological  reasons. 

The  most  of  the  parables  given  by  Luke  in 
this  section  are  peculiar  to  him.  They  are  riot 
parables  of  the  kingdom  setting  forth  its  myste- 
ries. They  are  parables  of  grace  and  salvation, 
making  plain  to  the  people  the  way  of  salvation. 
They  belong  to  another  method  of  teaching  than 
that  given  in  Mark  and  Matthew.  It  is  alto- 
gether probable,  therefore,  that  they  belong  to  a 
period  of  ministry  and  a  place  of  ministry  of 
which  Mark  and  Matthew  knew  nothing.  They 
have  their  appropriate  place  in  the  Persean 
ministry.  In  some  respects  their  teaching  is 
more  in  accord  with  the  Jerusalem  ministry  of 
John  than  with  the  Galilean  ministry  of  Mark. 

(3)  There  are  but  few  incidents  in  these  chap- 
ters as  compared  with  those  giving  the  Galilean 
ministry  of  Mark,  and  the  Jerusalem  ministry  of 
John.  The  reason  for  this  was  probably  the  his- 
torical situation, — peril  from  Herod,  and  the 
constant  hostility  of  the  Pharisees.  Jesus'  minis- 


76         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

try  was  less  in  the  synagogues  and  less  in  public 
than  during  the  Galilean  ministry.  It  was  more 
in  private  and  more  in  teaching  disciples.  The 
work  of  the  Seventy  was  going  on  all  through 
Perasa  during  this  period.  If  they  went  in  pairs 
there  were  thirty-five  or  thirty-six  different 
missions  which  must  have  covered  the  whole 
land  of  Peraaa  and  much  of  Judsea  also,  at  least 
the  whole  valley  of  the  Jordan.  There  is  no 
sufficient  reason,  therefore,  to  think  of  a  written 
source  for  this  material.  It  was  derived  by 
Luke  from  some  one  or  more  of  the  companions 
of  Jesus  in  this  ministry;  for  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  one  of  the  pairs  of  the  Twelve 
continued  with  Him  during  all  this  period.  If 
James  and  John,  owing  to  their  connections  in 
Jerusalem,  remained  for  the  most  part  during 
this  period  in  Jerusalem,  it  may  well  be  that 
they  brought  to  Jesus  the  sad  report  of  the 
death  of  Lazarus,  for  John  gives  the  narrative 
and  words  at  this  time.  It  may  be  that 
Matthew  and  his  mate  Thomas  were  the  com- 
panions of  Jesus  in  the  Pergean  ministry. 
Thomas  is  mentioned 1  as  being  with  Jesus  in 
Peraea.  He  it  is  who,  when  some  disciples 


John  xi.  16. 


THE  PER^AN  MINISTRY  77 

object  to  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  for  the  rais- 
ing of  Lazarus,  heroically  says,  "Let  us  also 
go  that  we  may  die  with  him."  No  other  mem- 
ber of  the  Twelve  is  mentioned  in  connection 
with  events  or  discourses  which  certainly  belong 
to  the  Pereean  ministry.  The  reference  to 
Peter,  in  Luke,1  is  in  connection  with  a  parable 
which  is  not  in  its  local  or  chronological  place. 
Matthew  was  the  mate  of  Thomas  in  the  list  of 
the  Twelve,  so  that  he  must  have  been  with  his 
mate  at  this  time.  This  explains  how  Matthew 
in  his  Logia  could  give  Perasan  logia  as  well  as 
Galilean.  The  Logia  of  Matthew,  if  it  gave  any 
historical  incidents  at  all,  gave  them  only  briefly 
as  introductory  to  logia.  Matthew's  Gospel,  as 
we  now  have  it,  came  from  a  different  and  a  later 
hand.  Luke's  versions  of  the  logia  are  usually 
nearer  the  original  of  Matthew's  Logia  in  or- 
der, form,  and  substance,  than  the  versions  of 
Matthew's  Gospel.  There  are  also  in  the  para- 
bles peculiar  to  Luke  certain  characteristics 
which  Matthew,  the  publican,  would  have  appre- 
hended more  than  any  other  of  the  Twelve. 
And  it  is  quite  possible  that  Luke  had  received 
oral  information  from  Matthew  himself.  How- 


1  Luke  xii.  41. 


78         NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

ever  this  may  be,  the  sources  of  Luke  for  the 
Perasan  ministry  were  reliable  oral  sources,  and 
when  the  material  is  properly  arranged,  it  fits 
into  the  Life  of  Jesus  with  nicety  and  floods  it 
with  light. 


VII 

JESUS  AND   THE   PHARISEES 

THE  Pharisees  were  the  dominant  party  in 
Judaism  in  the  time  of  Jesus.  Party 
spirit  prevailed  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  not 
only  against  their  chief  antagonists,  the  Sad- 
ducees,  who  had  possession  of  the  chief  places  of 
the  priesthood,  and  great  political  influence ;  but 
also  against  the  minor  parties  such  as  the  Hero- 
dians  and  Essenes,  and  indeed  between  the  Phar- 
isee schools  of  Hillel  and  Shammai.1  It  was 
only  natural,  therefore,  that  they  should  look 
with  suspicion  upon  the  rise  of  a  new  party,  at 
first  under  the  leadership  of  the  Baptist  and 
then  under  the  headship  of  Jesus.  The  Gospel 
of  Matthew2  represents  that  the  Baptist  sharply 
rebuked  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  who  came 
to  his  baptism.  This  is,  however,  not  given  in 
Mark,  and  Luke  gives  the  rebuke  a  more  general 
reference  to  the  multitude.3  The  Gospel  of 


1  See  Messiah  of  the  Gospels,  pp.  38  seq. 

2  Matt.  iii.  7-10.  Matt.  iii.  7-9- 


80         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

John  states  that  the  Pharisees  sent  representa- 
tives from  Jerusalem  to  the  Baptist  to  inquire 
who  he  was  and  why  he  baptized.1 

The  first  conflict  between  Jesus  and  the 
Pharisees,  according  to  Mark,  was  in  Caper- 
naum during  the  introductory  Galilean  ministry. 
They  accused  Him  of  blasphemy  because  He 
said  to  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy,  "  Thy  sins  are 
forgiven"  and  because  of  His  asserting  His 
authority  as  the  Son  of  Man  to  forgive  sins.2 

They  next  accused  Him  of  associating  with 
publicans  and  sinners,  because,  after  calling 
Matthew  to  be  His  disciple,  He  was  present  at  a 
farewell  feast  given  by  Matthew  to  his  friends.3 
A  third  conflict  soon  followed  as  to  fasting,  in 
which  Jesus  defended  the  action  of  His  disciples, 
in  not  conforming  to  the  uses  of  the  Pharisees 
in  this  respect.4  It  is  probable  also  that  the  dis- 
cussion as  to  purification,  about  the  same  time, 
was  one  in  which  the  Pharisees  took  an  active 
part.5  If  all  these  disputes  had  already  taken 
place  in  Galilee  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan 


1  Johni.  19-28. 

2  Mark  ii.  1-12;  Matt.  ix.  2-8;  Luke  v.  17-26. 

8  Mark  ii.  13-17  ;  Matt.  ix.  9-13  ;  Luke  v.  27-32. 
4  Mark  ii.  18-22;  Matt.  ix.  14-17  ;  Luke  v.  33-39, 
6  John  iii.  25. 


\    UNIVERSITY   ) 
or 

\^^ 
JESUS  AND  THE  PHARISEES  81 

before  Passover,  we  can  understand  that  the 
jealousy  of  the  Pharisees  at  the  greater  success 
of  Jesus  than  of  John  in  winning  disciples  may 
have  been  so  strong  that  it  was  prudent  of 
Jesus,  immediately  after  Passover,  to  depart  to 
Galilee.1 

On  the  way  to  Galilee  another  and  still  more 
serious  conflict  arose  respecting  the  Sabbath, 
which  became,  from  this  time  on,  the  most  seri- 
ous question  in  debate.  Jesus  and  His  disciples 
were  charged  with  violating  the  Sabbath  because 
He  allowed  His  disciples  to  pluck  from  the 
standing  grain  and  eat  it.2  This  is  followed,  in 
the  narratives,  by  His  healing  the  man  with  a 
withered  hand  on  the  sabbath.3  It  is  evident 
that  the  Pharisees  were  already  excited  against 
Him  on  this  occasion.  They  were  watching 
Him  for  an  opportunity  to  accuse  Him.  And 
after  this  cure  they  took  counsel  with  the  He- 
rodians  to  destroy  Him.  These  two  incidents 
are  put  together  by  the  evangelists.  But  it  is 
probable  that  this  order  was  for  topical  reasons, 
and  that  the  second  incident  was  some  time 
later.  For  the  plotting  of  the  Pharisees  and  the 


1  Johniv.  1-3. 

a  Mark  ii.  23-28  ;  Matt.  xii.  1-8  ;  Luke  vi.  1-5. 

s  Mark  iii.  1-6;  Matt.  xii.  9-14;  Luke  vi.  6-11. 


82         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Herodians  at  so  early  a  date  would  have  made 
His  second  Galilean  ministry  more  difficult  than 
it  appears  to  have  been  from  the  narratives  of 
this  period.  If  the  order  of  events  given  in 
previous  chapters  is  correct,  the  last  incident 
is  probably  the  climax  of  the  opposition  of  the 
Pharisees,  before  He  goes  up  to  Jerusalem  to 
the  feast  of  Pentecost. 

At  this  feast  Jesus  heals  an  infirm  man  on  the 
sabbath.1  The  Pharisees  of  Jerusalem,  there- 
fore, are  now  stirred  up  against  Him  for  violat- 
ing, as  they  supposed,  the  law  of  the  sabbath. 
He  claims  the  authority  to  do  this  miracle  on 
the  sabbath  as  the  Son  of  the  Father,  and  so 
another  ground  of  controversy  arises  respecting 
His  claim  of  a  special  Sonship  to  God.  Luke 2 
gives  a  touching  story  of  Jesus  at  a  meal  in  the 
house  of  a  Pharisee,  allowing  a  magdalene  to 
kiss  His  feet,  and  then  of  His  absolving  her  from 
all  her  sins.  Whether  this  occurred  in  the  sec- 
ond Galilean  ministry,  or  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  It  combines 
two  grounds  of  accusation  already  given  in  other 
connections  apart,  namely,  contact  with  sinners 
and  His  pronouncing  forgiveness  of  sins.  The 


John  v.  1-18.  2  Luke  vii.  36-50. 


JESUS  AND  THE  PHARISEES  83 

situation  is,  however,  less  serious  than  that  re- 
ported in  connection  with  the  sabbath  cure,1  and 
on  that  account  might  seem  earlier.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  different  place  at  a  later  date 
might  show  a  less  serious  situation.  This  is,  as 
I  understand  it,  the  sum  of  the  conflicts  of  Jesus 
with  the  Pharisees  during  His  Galilean  ministry. 
The  scene  now  shifts  to  Jerusalem,  where  the 
conflict  becomes  much  more  serious,  beginning 
with  a  reference  back  to  the  healing  of  the  in- 
firm man  already  considered.2  This  conflict 
broke  out  afresh  at  the  feast  of  Tabernacles. 
John  3  reports  a  continuous  discussion  with  the 
Pharisees  in  which  Jesus  is  in  constant  peril  of 
His  life.  It  is  probable  that  the  most  of  this 
material  belongs  to  a  later  date.  The  only  event 
mentioned  is  the  healing  on  the  sabbath,  of  the 
man  born  blind,  with  the  discussion  based  upon 
it.4  As  Jesus'  discourse  on  the  last  or  great  day 
of  the  feast  is  given 5  previously,  we  must  either 
suppose  that  Jesus  remained  in  Jerusalem  some 
time  after  the  conclusion  of  the  feast  day,  in 
which  the  material  of  John  must  be  placed  ;  or 
if  Jesus  departed  from  Jerusalem  on  His  Persean 

1   Mark  iii.  1-6.  2  John  vii.  19-24. 

8  John  vii.— x.  21.  *  John  ix. 

5  John  vii.  37-52. 


84         NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

ministry  directly  after  the  feast,  the  material  of 
these  chapters  must  be  put  at  another  and  later 
time.  The  latter  opinion  is  more  probable. 
The  word  of  Jesus  as  to  His  pre-existence  * 
seems  to  be  too  early.  And  the  same  may  be 
said  of  the  crisis  connected  with  the  healing  of 
the  blind  man.2  In  fact  this  material  should  be 
attached  to  the  visit  to  Jerusalem  at  the  feast  of 
Dedication. 

We  next  turn  our  attention  to  the  Pereean 
ministry,  where  the  conflict  with  the  Pharisees 
enters  upon  another  stage.  In  the  first  Persean 
ministry  the  conflict  begins  with  the  healing  of 
a  demoniac.  The  Pharisees  charge  Jesus  with 
casting  out  demons  through  the  authority  of  the 
prince  of  demons.  Jesus  warns  them  of  the  sin 
against  the  Divine  Spirit.3  The  logia  attached 
are  given  by  Mark 4  in  connection  with  another 
incident  in  Galilee.  But  this  conflict  is  without 
sufficient  motive  in  Mark  at  so  early  a  date.  It 
is  appropriate  where  Luke  puts  it  after  the  con- 
flict already  considered.  The  next  contest  is  at 
the  table  of  a  Pharisee,  with  reference  to  cere- 
monial purification  before  meals.5  A  similar  dis- 

1  John  viii.  56-59-  2  John  ix. 

3  Luke  xi.  14-15  ;  Matt.  xii.  22-24. 

4  Mark  iii.  22-30.  5  Luke  xi.  37-41. 


JESUS  AND  THE  PHARISEES  85 

cussion  is  given  in  Mark.1  It  is  possible  that 
these  are  different  reports  of  one  and  the  same 
discussion,  especially  as  Luke  does  not  report 
the  story  of  Mark,  and  Mark  does  not  give  the 
story  of  Luke,  while  Matthew  follows  Mark.  It 
is  also  possible,  however,  that  this  discussion 
may  have  occurred  twice,  because  the  stories  are 
altogether  different.  The  agreement  is  only  in 
the  essential  subject  of  controversy.  If  the 
former  alternative  be  correct,  we  must  regard  its 
place  here  in  Luke  as  due  to  topical  considera- 
tions, although  it  must  be  recognized  that  he 
gives  it  a  better  setting.  To  this  incident  Luke 
attaches  a  series  of  woes  upon  the  Pharisees 2 
given  by  Matthew  in  connection  with  the  final 
struggle  in  Jerusalem.3  The  connection  of  Luke 
has  topical  propriety,  but  it  is  improbable  that 
Jesus  would  have  uttered  these  woes  at  the  table 
of  a  Pharisee  where  He  was  a  guest.  They  are 
derived  by  both  Matthew  and  Luke  from  the 
Logia  of  Matthew,  where  they  probably  had  no 
historical  connection.  Each  evangelist  gives 
them  in  a  connection  most  appropriate  topically 
according  to  his  mind.  Matthew's  use  of  them 


1  Mark  vii.  1-23  ;  Matt.  xv.  1-20.  a  Luke  xi.  42-52. 

8  Matt,  xxiii. 


86         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

seems  on  the  whole  more  appropriate.  They 
apply,  many  of  them,  to  the  Pharisees  of  Jeru- 
salem rather  than  to  those  of  Peraea.  The 
warnings  against  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  l  is 
appropriate  in  this  connection  and  may  be  in  its 
proper  place,  although  it  is  given  in  Mark  2  in  a 
still  more  appropriate  place  later.  I^uke3  re- 
ports the  healing  of  a  woman  on  the  Sabbath 
with  the  usual  opposition  of  the  Pharisees,  here 
represented  by  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue. 

Jesus  now  returns  to  Jerusalem  to  the  feast 
of  Dedication.  For  what  reason  Jesus  went  up 
thither  we  are  not  informed.  He  probably  had 
prudential  reasons,  as  He  had  to  steer  between 
the  Scylla  of  Herod  and  the  Charybdis  of  the 
Sanhedrim  at  this  time.  All  that  is  reported  at 
this  feast  is  given  in  John  x.  22-39.  This  is  too 
meagre  to  explain  this  journey.  It  is  altogether 
probable,  therefore,  that  the  incidents  reported 
in  the  previous  chapter  of  John  belong  here.4 
It  is  probable  also,  that  the  healing  of  the 
blind  man  on  the  sabbath  occurred  at  this  time. 
We  may  then  explain  the  intensity  of  the  hos- 


1  Luke  xii.  1.  2  Mark  viii.  15  ;  Matt.  xvi.  6. 

3  Luke  xiii.  10-17- 

4  John  x.  26-29  implies  x.  1-21  ;  and  x.  29-39  implies  viii. 
12-59. 


JESUS  AND  THE  PHARISEES  87 

tility  of  the  Pharisees  in  view  of  the  assertion  of 
Jesus  of  His  pre-existence  as  the  Son  of  the 
Father,  and  His  assertion  of  His  Messiahship. 
No  wonder  that  His  life  was  now  in  extreme 
peril  and  that  He  had  to  depart  again  to  Persea. 

The  second  Perasan  ministry  renews  the  con- 
flict with  the  Pharisees.  Another  sabbath  meal 
with  a  Pharisee,  when  Jesus  heals  the  man  with 
the  dropsy,1  renews  the  discussion  as  to  the  sab- 
bath. Receiving  and  eating  with  sinners,  against 
which  the  Pharisees  murmured,  is  the  occasion 
of  the  three  parables  of  salvation. 2  The  rebuke 
of  the  Pharisaic  love  of  money  is  given  in  two 
other  parables.8  Jesus  now  suddenly  goes  up  to 
Jerusalem  to  raise  Lazarus  from  the  dead.4  His 
disciples  remonstrate  with  Him  because  of  the 
extreme  peril  of  such  a  course.  Thomas  alone 
of  the  Twelve  is  mentioned  as  present.  He  is 
mated  with  Matthew  in  the  lists  of  the  six 
pairs  of  the  Twelve,  who  was  probably  present 
also. 

The  conflict  has  now  reached  its  crisis  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  the  Pharisees  in  council,  under  the 
advice  of  Caiaphas,  the  Sadducee  high-priest, 


1  Luke  xiv.  1-6.  *  Luke  xv.  8  Luke  xvi. 

4  John  xi. 


88         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

decide  to  put  Jesus  to  death.  So  Jesus  hastily 
departed  from  Jerusalem  to  Ephraim.  After 
a  brief  tarrying  there,  He  journeys  northward 
through  Samaria,  and  secretly  through  Galilee  to 
Phoenicia,  then  on  the  border  of  Galilee  and 
Syria,  to  Decapolis,  where  the  final  Galilean 
ministry  begins.  The  conflict  with  the  Pharisees 
in  Galilee  now  becomes  much  sharper.  They 
persist  in  demanding  a  sign  and  stir  up  the  peo- 
ple to  this  demand.  This  is  evident  in  the  dis- 
course in  the  synagogue  of  Capernaum,1  which  is 
probably  the  same  incident  as  that  briefly  given 
in  another  connection  in  Mark.2  Here  comes 
the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  which  is  the  sym- 
bol of  His  death  and  resurrection.  This  is  ap- 
propriately followed  by  the  warning  against  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees.3  It  is  probable  that  the 
discussion  as  to  ceremonial  purification  before 
meals 4  belongs  here,  with  the  rebuke  of  the 
Pharisees  for  making  void  the  word  of  God  by 
their  traditions. 

Jesus  now  leaves  Galilee  on  His  last  journey 
to  Jerusalem,  passing  through  Pera?a.  On  this 
journey  comes  the  question  of  the  Pharisees  con- 

1  John  vi.  26-40.  2  Mark  viii.  10-13;  Matt.  xvi.  1-4. 

8  Mark  viii.  14-21  ;  Matt.  xvi.  5-12. 
4  Mark  vii.  1-23  ;  Matt.  xv.  1-20. 


JESUS  AND  THE  PHARISEES  89 

earning  divorce,1  the  discourse  with  the  Pharisees 
as  to  the  advent  of  the  kingdom,  with  the  es- 
chatological  discourse  attached,2  and  the  parable 
of  the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.3 

Jesus  now  enters  Jerusalem,  and  the  last  strug- 
gle begins.  This  was  a  battle  of  words  between 
Jesus  and  the  Pharisees,  in  which,  however,  the 
other  parties  join.  It  probably  lasted  two  days, 
in  which  Jesus  finally  silences  all  His  adversaries. 
The  report  is  given  by  Mark.4  Luke 5  follows 
Mark  closely,  omitting,  however,  the  question  as 
to  the  great  commandment,6  which  is  given  by 
him  in  another  connection,  and  in  another 
form.7  Matthew 8  greatly  enlarges  the  material 
not  only  by  the  addition  of  parables,  given  by 
Luke  elsewhere,  but  also  by  the  heaping  up  of 
woes  upon  the  Pharisees,  given  by  Luke  as  we 
have  seen  in  connection  with  the  Perasan  minis- 
try. The  connection  of  Matthew  seems  more 
appropriate,  but  we  cannot  be  sure  that  these 
logia  are  not  indeed  a  gathering  up  of  logia 
spoken  on  many  different  occasions.  The  con- 


1  Mark  x.  2-12  ;  Matt.  xix.  3-12. 

2  Luke  xvii.  20-37.  s  Luke  xviii.  9-14. 
4  Mark  xi.  27-xii.  41.  5  Luke  xx.  1-47. 

6  Mark  xii.  28-34- ;  Matt.  xxii.  34-40. 

7  Luke  x.  25-37.  8  Matt.  xxi.  23-xxiii. 


90         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

flict  with  the  Pharisees  had  reached  its  goal. 
The  Sanhedrim,  controlled  by  the  Pharisees,  had 
determined  His  death.  The  grounds  of  accusa- 
tion had  been  prepared.  But  Jesus  makes  all 
this  unnecessary,  for  under  oath  before  the  San- 
hedrim He  meets  the  essential  issue,  asserts  dis- 
tinctly that  He  is  the  Messiah,  is  condemned 
for  blasphemy  on  that  account,  and  is  given  over 
to  Herod  to  be  crucified  as  King  of  the  Jews. 


VIII 

WHEN   DID   JESUS   FIRST   DECLARE   HIS   MES- 
SIAHSHIP  ? 

ANY  attempt  to  harmonize  the  Gospels  on 
the  basis  of  a  chronological  order  of  the 
material  in  Mark  or  John  is  wrecked  upon  insu- 
perable obstacles.  None  of  these  is  more  impor- 
tant than  the  Messianic  claims  of  Jesus.  It  is 
evident  from  the  Synoptists  that  His  claims 
were  for  the  greater  part  of  His  Galilean  minis- 
try veiled  behind  the  term  Son  of  Man;  and 
from  the  Gospel  of  John  in  the  Jerusalem  min- 
istry, behind  the  term  Son  of  the  Father.1  But 
there  comes  a  time  when  Jesus  distinctly  claims 
recognition  as  the  Messiah,  and  indeed  as  the 
suffering  Messiah.  If  we  could  find  an  adequate 
reason  for  this  change  of  policy,  and  fix  the  time 
of  the  change,  one  of  the  most  important  prob- 
lems in  the  life  of  Jesus  would  be  solved. 

Such  a  reason  and  such  a  date  are  given  in  the 
story,  John  xi.  47-54.     The  Sanhedrim  followed 


The  Incarnation  of  our  Lord,  pp.  28  seq.,  50  seq. 


92         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  advice  of  the  chief  priest  Caiaphas,  and  de 
cided  upon  the  death  of  Jesus  as  the  only  way  in 
which  to  save  the  nation.  This  was  soon  after 
the  resurrection  of  Lazarus — not  long  after  the 
feast  of  Dedication,  probably  at  the  close  of  De- 
cember, or  the  beginning  of  January.  This  de- 
cision of  the  Sanhedrim  made  the  arrest  and 
death  of  Jesus  only  a  question  of  time  and  of 
opportunity.  Jesus  was  at  once  informed  of 
this  decision  and — ' '  therefore  walked  no  more 
openly  among  the  Jews,  but  departed  thence  into 
the  country  near  to  the  wilderness,  into  a  city 
called  Ephraim  ;  and  there  He  tarried  with  the 
disciples"1  It  became  evident,  therefore,  that 
the  next  time  Jesus  appeared  in  Jerusalem 
He  would  meet  His  arrest  and  death.  And  it 
was  not  at  all  improbable  that  the  Sanhedrim 
would  send  officers  after  Him  to  arrest  Him  on 
His  journey.  The  little  city  of  Ephraim  on  the 
borders  of  the  wilderness  and  of  Samaria  afforded 
Him  an  easy  and  speedy  way  of  escape  from 
such  a  pursuit.  There  was  now,  therefore,  no 
longer  any  reason  for  reticence  as  to  His  Mes- 
siahship  on  the  part  of  Jesus.  His  enemies  had 
decided  upon  His  death. 


1  John  xi.  54. 


HIS  MESSIAHSHIP  93 

Indeed  we  may  go  back  to  the  feast  of  Dedi- 
cation for  the  beginning  of  this  critical  situation. 
He  went  up  to  that  feast  from  Perasa  to  escape 
Herod  and  to  continue  His  conflict  with  the 
Pharisees  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  at  this  feast  that 
He  first  advanced  His  Messianic  relation  as  the 
Son  of  the  Father  to  the  assertion  of  His  pre- 
existence  before  Abraham,  and  only  escaped 
stoning  for  blasphemy  by  hurried  escape  from 
the  Temple.  It  was  at  this  feast  that  He  dis- 
tinctly asserted  His  Messiahship  to  the  blind 
man  He  had  healed,  and  claimed  his  allegiance. 
The  Messianic  claims  of  Jesus,  therefore,  were 
brought  clearly  before  the  Sanhedrim  and  the 
people  of  Jerusalem.  They  themselves  had 
forced  the  issue.  They  must  either  accept  Jesus 
or  reject  Him.  They  determined  to  reject  Him 
as  a  blaspheming  pretender,  and  to  expel  the 
blind  man,  whom  Jesus  had  healed,  from  the 
synagogue,  as  His  disciple.  This  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  policy  of  active  persecution  of  Jesus 
and  His  disciples.  Jesus,  when  he  went  up  to 
Jerusalem  to  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  knew  that 
He  was  entering  into  greater  peril  than  He  was 
exposed  to  from  Herod  in  Persea.  His  disciples 
interposed  with  an  objection  to  the  journey,  but 
in  vain. 


94         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

His  death  was  decreed  by  the  Sanhedrim  at 
the  feast  of  Dedication.  It  was  certain  to  take 
place  when  next  He  came  to  Jerusalem  at  the 
ensuing  Passover.  There  remained  only  about 
four  months1  during  which  He  could  secure 
from  His  disciples  the  recognition  of  His  Mes- 
siahship,  and  therefore  the  time  had  come  for 
Him  to  make  this  the  burden  of  His  teaching. 
After  a  brief  sojourn  in  Ephraim  Jesus  makes 
the  journey  through  Samaria  to  Galilee.  In 
Samaria  He  was  safe  from  the  Sanhedrim  and 
from  Herod.  At  Sychar,  the  ancient  seat  of 
Jacob's  well,  He  distinctly  claims  to  be  the  Mes- 
siah and  accepts  the  recognition  of  the  Samar- 
itans.2 The  narrative  tells  us  that  He  abode  with 
them  two  days.  On  entering  Galilee,  He  goes 
to  Nazareth,  His  birthplace,  and  in  the  syna- 
gogue on  the  Sabbath,  declares  that  He  is  the 
Messianic  prophet  of  the  second  Isaiah,  and  gives 
His  native  city  an  opportunity  of  recognizing 
Him,  which,  however,  His  townsmen  refused; 
and  with  difficulty  He  escapes  their  hands.3  He 
thus  realizes  His  peril,  not  only  from  Herod, 
but  from  the  people  of  Galilee,  even  from  those 


1  John  iv.  35.  *  John  iv.  25,  26. 

3  Luke  iv.  16-30;  Mark  vi.  1-6;  Matt.  xiii.  54-58. 


HIS  MESSIAHSHIP  95 

whom  He  had  a  right  to  expect  would  be  most 
favorable  to  Him. 

Accordingly  He  at  once  departs  to  Phoenicia 
to  the  borders  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  Peter  and 
Andrew  probably  being  His  only  companions. 
Even  there  He  wrished  to  remain  unknown.1 
From  thence  He  journeys  along  the  northern 
borders  of  Galilee  through  the  midst  of  the 
borders  of  Decapolis  (the  northern  section), 
and  goes  up  into  a  mountain,  not  far  from 
Bethsaida,2  which  belonged  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  Philip.  Here  the  Twelve  join  Him.  But  a 
great  multitude  crowd  to  Him  also,  and  He 
works  many  cures  and  feeds  the  multitude  in  the 
wilderness.  He  sends  the  Twelve  by  sea  to 
Bethsaida,  while  He  Himself  remains  behind 
and  apart  to  pray.3  A  storm  forces  the  Twelve 
out  of  their  course,  and  Jesus  comes  to  them 
walking  on  the  sea.4  A  calm  coming  on  they 
are  compelled  to  land  in  the  plain  of  Gennesaret 
instead  of  at  Bethsaida,  and  probably  near  Mag- 
dala  at  its  southern  end.5  Jesus  crosses  the  plain 
to  Capernaum,  where  He  delivers  the  discourse 
in  the  synagogue  which  brings  on  a  crisis  among 
His  disciples.  Many  of  His  disciples  abandon 

1  Mark  vii.  24.  2  Mark  vii.  31-37;  Matt.  xv.  29-31. 

3  Mark  vi.  45,  46.  4  Mark  vi.  47-56. 

6  See  p.  48. 


96         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Him,  but  the  Twelve  remain  faithful,  and 
speaking  through  Peter  recognize  Him  as  the 
Messiah.1  This  recognition  is  placed  in  John  at 
the  close  of  the  discourse;  but  it  is  doubtless  the 
same  recognition  as  that  given  by  the  Synoptists 
a  little  later  at  Caesarea  Philippi.2 

The  demand  for  a  sign3  other  than  His 
miracles  is  probably  the  same  as  that  given  in 
the  Synoptists,4  in  which,  under  the  symbol  of 
Jonah,  Jesus  gives  a  veiled  prediction  of  His 
death  and  resurrection. 

He  crosses  again  to  the  other  side  of  the  sea,5 
doubtless  for  prudential  reasons,  and  goes  to 
Bethsaida  with  the  Twelve,  where  He  heals  a 
blind  man,6  and  then  journeys  rapidly  northward 
to  Ceesarea  Philippi,  at  the  base  of  Hermon, 
where  Peter,  as  the  spokesman  of  the  Twelve, 
distinctly  recognizes  Him  as  the  Messiah.7  Jesus 
then  tells  them  of  His  impending  death  and 
resurrection.8  This  is  followed  by  the  Trans- 
figuration.9 The  grand  tone  of  all  His  conversa- 


John  vi.  22-71.  f  Seep.  47. 

John  vi.  30.  4  Mark  viii.  11, 12;  Matt.  xvi.  1-4. 

Mark  viii.  13.  '  Mark  viii.  22-26. 

Mark  viii.  27-30  ;  Matt.  xvi.  13-20  ;    Luke  ix.  18-21. 

Mark  viii.  31-ix.  1 ;  Luke  ix.  22-27;  Matt.  xvi.  21-28. 

Mark  ix.  2-13;  Matt.  xvii.  1-13  ;  Luke  ix.  28-36. 


HIS  MESSIAHSHIP  97 

tions  with  His  disciples  subsequent  to  this  event 
is  His  impending  death.1 

How  natural  all  this  is  if  it  occurred  a  few 
days  before  His  death,  which  He  knew  to  have 
been  already  decided  upon  by  the  Sanhedrim. 
His  journeys  up  to  this  time  must  have  con- 
sumed several  weeks.  John2  states  that  the 
Passover  was  at  hand.  We  may  therefore  con- 
clude that  the  month  of  Nisan  was  about  to 
begin  at  the  time  of  the  feeding  of  the  multi- 
tudes. He  must  have  been,  therefore,  within  less 
than  three  weeks  of  His  death  when  at  Cgesarea 
Philippi.  How  unnatural  it  is  if  all  this  is 
placed  in  the  middle  of  His  ministry,  a  year  or 
more  before  His  death,  as  the  harmonists  are 
accustomed  to  arrange  it. 

From  Cassarea  Philippi,  Jesus  with  the  Twelve 
returns  to  Capernaum,3  on  a  rapid  journey  to 
Jerusalem.  He  now  takes  the  usual  route,  by 
the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  followed  by  His  dis- 
ciples and  the  multitudes.  He  crosses  to  Persea,4 
where  it  is  probable  that  the  Seventy  rejoin 
Him.  Then  He  continues  His  journey  up  to 
Jerusalem,5  accompanied  by  both  the  Twelve 

1  Mark  ix.  9-13,  30-32.  2  John  vi.  4. 

3  Mark  ix.  33;  Matt.  xvii.  24.  *  Mark  x.  1. 

5  Mark  x.  32-45. 


98         NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

and  the  Seventy;  and  again  foretells  to  the 
Twelve  His  impending  death  and  gives  the  high 
calling  to  suffer  martyrdom  in  like  manner.  At 
Jericho,  where  the  journey  was  naturally  inter- 
rupted for  a  rest,  He  heals  a  blind  man,1  and 
accepts  Zaccheeus  as  a  disciple,  with  whom  He 
lodges  for  a  night.2  He  then  journeys  on  to 
Jerusalem,  arriving  at  Bethany  six  days  before 
the  beginning  of  Passover,3  late  Friday  on  the 
evening  beginning  Sabbath.  He  lodges  with 
Lazarus  over  Sabbath,  and  is  anointed  by  Mary 
at  a  supper  on  the  Sabbath.  This  which  was 
designed  by  her  in  His  honor,  but  was  inter- 
preted by  Jesus  as  for  His  burial,  was  indeed 
the  provocation  for  the  betrayal  of  Judas.  Pas- 
sion week  has  begun. 

The  next  day,  Sunday,  the  ninth  of  Nisan,  He 
enters  Jerusalem  accompanied  by  the  Twelve 
and  the  Seventy  and  a  great  throng  of  His  dis- 
ciples, and  He  accepts  their  enthusiastic  re- 
cognition of  Him  as  the  Messiah.4  He  knows 
He  is  about  to  die.  There  is  no  longer  reason 
for  hesitation.  The  more  public  the  better. 
Jerusalem  must  accept  Him  or  reject  Him. 


1  Mark  x.  46-52.  3  Luke  xix.  1-10, 

8  John  xii.  1-8.  4  Mark  xi.  1-11, 


HIS  MESSIAHSHIP  99 

This  was  her  last  opportunity.  The  casting  out 
of  the  traders  from  the  temple  on  the  tenth  was 
a  still  more  marked  declaration  of  His  Messianic 
authority.  A  few  days  of  conflict  with  the 
Pharisees,  Sadducees,  and  Herodians,  in  which 
all  these  parties  tried  to  entrap  Him  and  get 
from  Him  grounds  for  condemnation — a  few 
days  of  struggle  between  the  Galilean  and 
Persean  multitudes  who  followed  Him  and  the 
crowds  of  Jerusalem  who  rejected  Him — a 
few  more  days  for  the  instruction  of  His  dis- 
ciples— the  case  against  Him  had  been  prepared 
and  was  ready;  it  was  only  necessary  to  arrest 
Him  with  as  little  disturbance  as  possible;  the 
treachery  of  Judas  enabled  the  Sanhedrim  to 
make  a  quiet  arrest  in  the  night,  and  to  hurry 
forward  the  process  against  Him,  declare  Him 
guilty,  and  secure  the  consent  of  the  Roman 
Governor  to  His  crucifixion,  just  before  the 
Passover  feast  began. 

The  order  of  events  given  above  is  a  natural 
order — it  is  an  order  that  exhibits  a  rapid  de- 
velopment of  events  rushing  on  to  the  crisis,  and 
it  avoids  the  inconsistencies  of  the  premature 
declaration  and  recognition  of  His  Messiahship, 
and  especially  of  a  prediction  of  His  death, 
months  before  there  was  any  real  peril  of  it, 


100       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

which  the  ordinary  arrangement  of  the  material 
gives  us.  Such  a  view,  indeed,  enhances  the 
predictive  element  in  the  discourses  of  Jesus, 
but  on  the  other  hand  it  is  difficult  to  see  any 
real  occasion  for  such  prediction  at  so  early  a 
stage  in  His  career,  and  it  results  in  an  ap- 
parently unnecessary  and  premature  puzzling  of 
His  disciples  with  new  difficulties,  when  those 
they  were  compelled  to  confront  were  great 
enough  and  severe  enough  in  any  case. 


IX 

THE   ORDER   OF   EVENTS   IN   PASSION   WEEK 

THE  Gospels  heap  up  events  and  discourses 
in  the  last  week  of  Jesus'  life.  There  are 
several  difficult  problems  connected  with  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  material.  The  Gospel  of  John 
tells  us1  that  Jesus  came  to  Bethany  six  days  be- 
fore the  Passover.  This  statement  seems  definite 
enough,  and  yet  there  are  three  different  opinions 
as  to  the  day,  whether  it  was  Friday,  Saturday, 
or  Sunday.  This  statement  of  the  Gospel  of 
John  must  be  interpreted  in  accordance  with  the 
subsequent  statement  of  this  Gospel  as  to  the 
Passover.  As  we  have  seen,  John  represents 
the  crucifixion  as  taking  place  at  the  time  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Passover  on  Friday,  the  fourteenth 
of  Nisan — six  days  before  would  give  us  Saturday 
the  eighth.  Jesus  having  made  the  journey  from 
Jericho  on  Friday,  arrives  late  in  the  day  on 
the  evening  after  the  Sabbath  had  begun.  The 
Sabbath  would  then  be  spent  in  Bethany.  This 


John  xii.  1. 


102      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

gives  room  for  the  supper  at  Bethany  on  the 
Sabbath. 

The  Sabbath  seems  to  have  been  the  custom- 
ary time  for  social  gatherings  in  the  time  of 
Jesus.  In  John  it  is  directly  attached  to  the 
arrival  in  Bethany,1  and  gives  a  proper  oppor- 
tunity for  the  coming  of  the  crowds  to  see 
Jesus  and  Lazarus.2  Another  account  of  this 
supper  and  of  the  anointing  is  given  in  the 
Synoptists,3  subsequent  to  the  statement  that 
the  Sanhedrim  two  days  before  the  Passover 
decided  to  betray  Him.  But  this  is  doubtless  a 
topical  order  due  to  the  fact  that  the  waste  of 
this  anointing  is  given  as  the  motive  for  the 
betrayal  of  Judas,4  which  naturally  comes  after 
the  determination  to  put  Jesus  to  death.  We 
may  therefore  follow  John  rather  than  Mark  as 
to  the  time  of  the  anointing,  all  the  more  that 
it  gives  Judas  time  to  brood  over  his  dissatis- 
faction before  he  finally  decides  to  become  a 
traitor. 

John5  tells  us  that  on  the  morrow,  that  is 
Sunday,  the  ninth  of  Nisan,  Jesus  made  His 
Messianic  entry  into  Jerusalem.  The  Synop- 


1  John  xii.  2-8.  2  John  xii.  9-11. 

3  Mark  xiv.  3-9;  Matt.  xxvi.  6-13.  *  Mark  xiv.  10, 11. 

5  John  xii.  12-19. 


ORDER  OF  EVENTS  IN  PASSION  WEEK     103 

tists l  give  it  in  connection  with  the  journey  from 
Jericho,  so  that  it  seems  as  if  He  went  right  on 
into  Jerusalem  the  same  day.  The  statement 
of  John  is  more  natural  and  so  more  probable. 
In  the  evening  He  retires  to  Bethany  with  the 
Twelve.2 

On  the  morrow,  that  is  Monday,  the  tenth  of 
Nisan,3  on  His  way  to  the  temple,  Jesus  cursed 
the  fig  tree,  and  on  His  entry  into  the  temple, 
cast  out  the  traders  because  they  had  made  it  a 
den  of  thieves.4  As  the  tenth  day  was  the  day 
of  selecting  the  paschal  lamb,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  an  attempt  to  defraud  Jesus  and  His  dis- 
ciples in  the  purchase  of  the  lamb  excited  His 
indignation  and  induced  Him  to  this  assertion  of 
His  Messianic  authority.  Again  He  went  forth 
to  Bethany  and  lodged  there.5  Luke  tells  us, 
however,  that  He  went  to  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
And  it  may  be  that  Jesus  and  His  disciples 
lodged  in  the  open  air  rather  than  in  houses. 

In  the  morning,  that  is  Tuesday,  the  eleventh 
of  Nisan,  they  passed  by  the  fig  tree  and  found 
it  withered  away  from  the  roots.6  Now  begins 


1  Mark  xi.  1-11  ;  Luke  xix.  29-44;  Matt.  xxi.  1-11. 

2  Mark  xi.  11.  3  Mark  xi.  12-14;  Matt,  xviii.  18,  19- 

4  Mark  xi.  15-19  ;  Matt.  xxi.  12-17  ;  Luke  xix.  45-48. 

5  Matt.  xxi.  17.  6  Mark  xi.  20-25  ;  Matt.  xxi.  20-22. 


104      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  conflict  of  Jesus  with  the  Pharisees  and 
other  Jewish  sects,  who  try  one  after  the  other 
to  entrap  Him.  The  Synoptists  begin  the  nar- 
rative immediately  after  the  narrative  of  the 
withering  of  the  fig  tree  but  without  any  pre- 
cise indication  of  time:  "And  they  come  again 
to  Jerusalem ; "  1  "  and  when  he  was  come  into 
the  temple;"*  Luke3  makes  the  statement, 
" And  it  came  to  pass,  on  one  of  the  days" 
This  is  preceded  by  the  general  statement,4 
"  And  he  was  teaching  daily  in  the  temple. 
But  the  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  and  the 
principal  men  of  the  people  sought  to  destroy 
him;  and  they  could  not  find  what  they  might 
do;  for  the  people  all  hung  upon  him,  listen- 
ing" 5  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  we  have 
to  distribute  these  discussions  over  two  days, 
Tuesday  and  Wednesday.  It  is  evident  that 
a  large  amount  of  additional  material  given  here 
by  Matthew  is  used  in  accordance  with  his 
method  of  gathering  logia,  parables,  and  dis- 
cussions spoken  on  different  occasions  in  con- 
nection with  some  principal  occasion.  Much  of 
this  is  given  on  other  occasions  in  the  other 

1  Mark  xi.  27.  2  Matt.  xxi.  23. 

8  Luke  xx.  1.  *  Luke  xix.  47,  48. 

5  Mark  xi.  18. 


ORDER  OF  EVENTS  IN  PASSION  WEEK     105 

Gospels.  Mark,  supported  by  Luke  and  John, 
are  therefore  the  only  safe  guides.  The  first 
and  most  natural  question  is  as  to  Jesus'  author- 
ity.1 This  was  probably  on  Tuesday,  the  day 
after  His  expulsion  of  the  traders  from  the  tem- 
ple. This  is  followed  by  a  parable  of  the  wicked 
husbandmen,2  to  which  Matthew  has  attached 
two  other  similar  parables.3 

It  is  probable  that  we  must  assign  the  ques- 
tions 4  to  the  next  day,  Wednesday,  the  twelfth 
of  Nisan,  for  they  are  represented  as  put  to  Him 
in  the  execution  of  a  plan  which  had  been  deter- 
mined upon  after  careful  deliberation.5  The 
questions  were  designed  to  ensnare  Him.  Three 
different  parties  came  to  Him  for  this  purpose— 
(1)  the  Herodians,6  who  try  to  entrap  Him  in  a 
question  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  paying  tribute 
to  Caesar.  (2)  Next  the  Sadducees  test  Him  as 
to  the  Resurrection.7  (3)  Finally  the  Phari- 
sees test  Him  as  to  the  Law.8  Jesus  now  turns 


1  Mark  xi.  27-33  ;  Matt.  xxi.  23-27  ;  Luke  xx.  1-8. 

2  Mark  xii.  1-12  ;  Luke  xx.  9-19. 

3  Matt.  xxi.  28-41  ;  xxii.  1-14. 

4  Mark  xii.  13-34;  Matt.  xxii.  15-40;  Luke  xx.  20-40. 

5  Mark  xii.  13  ;  Matt.  xxii.  15  ;  Luke  xx.  20. 

6  Mark  xii.  13-17;  Matt.  xxii.  16-22;  Luke  xx.  21-26. 

7  Mark  xii.  18-27  ;  Matt.  xxii.  23-33  ;  Luke  xii.  27-40. 

8  Mark  xii.  28-34  ;  Matt.  xxii.  34-40. 


106      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  tables  on  them  with  a  question  as  to  the 
Messiah,1  which  they  cannot  answer,  and  con- 
cludes with  an  exposure  of  the  hypocrisy  of  the 
Pharisees,2  to  which  Matthew  adds  a  large 
amount  of  material  from  earlier  occasions.3  It 
is  probable  that  the  story  of  the  widow's  mite  4 
belongs  to  this  day,  and  at  its  close  the  Escha- 
tological  discourse  to  the  disciples  on  the  mount 
of  Olives,5  to  which  Matthew  has  added  a  large 
amount  of  additional  material,6  a  considerable 
portion  of  which  is  given  by  Luke  elsewhere. 
Matthew  indeed  puts  this  discourse  two  days 
before  the  Passover.  Matthew 7  and  Mark 8  tell 
us  that  it  was  on  this  day,  two  days  before  the 
Passover,  that  the  Sanhedrim  decided  to  put 
Jesus  to  death.  They  decided  to  take  Him  by 
craft  and  not  during  the  feast,  in  order  to  avoid 
a  tumult  among  the  people.  It  is  probable 
that.  Judas  came  to  them  and  arranged  for  the 
betrayal  at  this  time,  although  it  is  quite  possi- 
ble that  it  was  not  until  the  following  day.9 


1  Mark  xii.  35-37;  Matt.  xxii.  41-46;  Luke  xx.  41-44. 

2  Mark  xii.  38-40 ;  Luke  xx.  45-47.  3  Matt,  xxiii. 
*  Mark  xii.  41-44  ;  Luke  xxi.  1-4. 

5  Mark  xiii. ;  Luke  xxi.  5-38.  6  Matt,  xxiv-xxv. 

7  Matt.  xxvi.  1,2.  8  Mark  xiv.  1-2. 

9  Mark  xiv.  10,  11 ;  Luke  xxii.  3-5;  Matt.  xxvi.  14-16. 


ORDER  OF  EVENTS  IN  PASSION  WEEK      107 

The  day  before  the  Passover  had  now  come. 
What  shall  we  assign  to  that  day?  Did  Jesus 
remain  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  apart  by  Him- 
self, or  did  He  go  again  to  the  temple  ?  In  the 
latter  case  are  we  to  place  any  of  the  discussions 
given  above  so  late  ?  This  is  improbable.  The 
contest  of  words  had  reached  its  end.  His  oppo- 
nents had  been  so  defeated  that  they  had  given 
up  the  contest  and  only  now  thought  of  His 
arrest  and  death.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Jesus 
spent  this  day  in  retirement,  so  far  as  the  morn- 
ing and  afternoon  were  concerned.  But  it  is 
more  probable  that  He  used  it  for  a  final  dis- 
course in  the  temple.  The  Gospel  of  John 
indeed  gives  us  material  which  comes  in  appro- 
priately here,  and  which  it  is  difficult  to  put  on 
an  earlier  day.  John 1  tells  us  of  a  meeting  with 
some  Greeks  in  the  temple,  a  theophany  there,  a 
declaration  of  His  death,  and  a  final  rejection  by 
the  people,  and  ends  with  the  statement — '  *  He 
departed  and  hid  himself  from  them. " 

If  the  interpretation2  given  in  a  previous 
chapter  is  correct,  on  this  day  Jesus  sends  Peter 
and  John  to  prepare  for  the  Passover  meal.  The 
story  implies  secrecy  as  to  the  place.  On  the 

1  John  xii.  20-36. 

2  Mark  xiv.  12 ;  Luke  xxii.  7  ;  Matt.  xxvi.  17.     See  pp.  6l  seq. 


108       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

evening  after  the  close  of  this  day,  on  Friday,  the 
fourteenth  of  Nisan,  Jesus  holds  His  farewell 
meal  with  the  Twelve,  and  institutes  the  Lord's 
supper,1  which  is  connected  with  a  long  farewell 
discourse  of  John. 2 

In  the  night  they  go  forth  to  Gethsemane  at 
the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  where  He 
undergoes  the  agony  of  His  last  preparation  for 
martyrdom.3  Then  follows  His  betrayal  by 
Judas,  His  arrest  by  the  officers  of  the  Sanhe- 
drim, and  His  interrogation  and  trial  before  the 
Sanhedrim,  all  of  which  occurred  during  the 
night.  On  the  morning  of  Friday,  the  four- 
teenth of  Nisan,  the  Sanhedrim  accuse  Him 
before  Pilate  and  demand  His  death.  Pilate 
examines  Him  and  can  find  no  fault  in  Him. 
Desirous  of  pleasing  the  Jews,  he  offers  them 
the  choice  of  Jesus  or  Barabbas.  They  choose 
Barabbas  and  demand  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus. 
Pilate  complies  with  their  demand.  Jesus  is 
mocked  as  King  of  the  Jews,  is  scourged  by  the 
soldiers  of  Herod  and  Pilate,  and  taken  off  to  be 
crucified.  During  the  extremity  of  His  agony, 

1  Mark  xiv.  12-26  ;  Matt.  xxvi.  17-36;  Luke  xxii.  7-30. 

2  Chaps,  xiii.-xvii. 

3  Mark  xiv.  32-42  ;  Matt.  xxvi.  36-46  ;  Luke  xxii.  39-46  ; 
John  xviii.  1. 


ORDER  OF  EVENTS  IN  PASSION  WEEK      109 

from  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  hour,  from  midday 
to  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  there  was  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun  and  an  earthquake.  Jesus 
seems  to  have  expired  about  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  at  the  time  when  it  was  usual  to  begin 
the  sacrifice  of  the  Paschal  lamb  in  the  temple. 
The  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  by  the  earthquake, 
to  show  that  it  was  now  abandoned  by  God. 
The  true  Paschal  lamb  had  just  been  sacrificed, 
the  animal  victims  were  no  longer  of  any  value. 

The  time  for  the  eating  of  the  Passover  was 
rapidly  approaching,  and  it  was  improper  to 
allow  the  bodies  to  remain  on  the  cross ;  for  that 
would  desecrate  the  feast.  Accordingly  they 
were  removed  in  great  haste  after  death  had 
been  certified.  Joseph  of  Arimathsea  obtained 
from  Pilate  authority  to  remove  the  body  of 
Jesus  to  his  own  tomb.  He  was  assisted  by 
Nicodemus  and  the  women  from  Galilee  in  the 
preparation  of  the  body  for  entombment. 

On  the  Sabbath,  the  fifteenth  of  Nisan,  Jesus 
remained  in  the  tomb.  But  on  Sunday,  the  six- 
teenth of  Nisan,  the  day  of  the  Omer  offering, 
He  arose  from  the  dead  according  to  His  prom- 
ise and  showed  Himself  to  His  disciples  dur- 
ing forty  days,  after  which  He  ascended  to  His 
heavenly  throne  to  reign  as  the  Messianic  King. 


THE   FORTY   DAYS   OF   THE    RISEN   JESUS 

THE  earliest  written  reference  to  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  is  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  written  less  than  twenty  years  after 
the  event.  Paul  claims  to  have  received  his 
Gospel  by  revelation  from  the  risen  Jesus.1  The 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  written  some 
five  years  later,  makes  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
the  cardinal  principle  of  the  Christian  religion, 
and  gives  a  number  of  appearances  of  the  risen 
Jesus  to  His  disciples.2  These  are  no  less  than 
six  in  number  :  (1)  to  Cephas,  or  Peter,  (2)  to 
the  Twelve,  (3)  to  more  than  five  hundred  breth- 
ren, (4)  to  James,  the  Lord's  brother,  (5)  to  all 
the  apostles,  (6)  to  Paul  himself.  This  was  many 
years  before  any  of  the  Gospels  were  written.  In 
view  of  this  full  report  of  Paul,  it  is  certainly 
surprising  that  the  Gospel  of  Mark  gives  no  ac- 
count whatever  of  the  appearances  of  Jesus.  It 
is  true  that  we  have 3  an  account  of  several  ap- 
pearances of  the  risen  Jesus:  (1)  to  Mary  Mag- 

1  Gal.  i.  11-12.  a  1  Cor.  xv.  1-8.          3  Mark  xvi.  9-20. 


FORTY  DAYS  OF   THE  RISEN  JESUS          111 

dalene,  (2)  to  two  of  the  disciples  unnamed,  (3)  to 
the  Eleven.  But  it  is  evident  that  this  is  a  con- 
densed statement  from  a  much  later  date,  and  it 
is  agreed  by  critics  that  this  was  a  late  addition 
to  the  Gospel.  The  original  Mark,  as  preserved 
for  us,  contains,  therefore,  only  the  announce- 
ment of  the  resurrection  to  Mary  Magdalene, 
Mary  the  mother  of  James,  and  Salome,  by  an 
angel,  with  the  promise  to  Peter  of  an  appear- 
ance1 to  the  disciples  in  Galilee.  This  is  all  the 
more  significant  that  the  Gospel  of  Mark  gives 
us  no  less  than  three  predictions  of  His  death 
and  resurrection.2 

The  same  is  implied  in  all  Jesus'  predictions 
as  to  His  second  advent  as  the  Son  of  Man 
on  the  clouds,  in  accordance  with  the  concep- 
tion of  the  Son  of  Man  of  Daniel.  It  seems 
altogether  improbable,  therefore,  that  Mark, 
having  prepared  so  carefully  for  the  event  of  the 
resurrection  by  these  predictions,  would  have 
given  no  account  of  it  in  his  narrative.  More- 
over it  is  evident  that  the  Gospel  without  the 
closing  section  has  no  proper  conclusion.  Are 

1  Mark  xvi.  1-8. 

2  (1)  Mark  viii.  31  ;  Matt.  xvi.  21  ;  Luke  ix.  22  ;    (2)  Mark 
ix.  30-32  ;  Matt.  xvii.  22,  23  ;  Luke  ix.  43-45  ;     (3)  Mark  x. 
32-34  ;  Matt.  xx.  17-19  ;  Luke  xviii.  31-34. 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

we  to  suppose  that  the  present  conclusion  is  a 
substitute  for  the  original  conclusion,  owing  to 
a  mutilation  of  the  only  original  manuscript,  or 
that  it  has  taken  the  place  of  the  original  conclu- 
sion by  the  intention  of  a  later  editor  ?  Both  of 
these  suppositions  are  improbable.  The  Gospel 
of  Mark  has  at  the  beginning  the  sentence : 
"The  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God."  It  is  not  clear  whether  this  is  a 
title,  or  the  introductory  clause  of  the  sentence 
defined  by  the  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist  that 
follows.  The  most  natural  interpretation  would 
be,  if  this  is  the  title  of  the  Gospel,  that  it  im- 
plies a  continuation  of  the  Gospel  in  another  and 
a  concluding  writing.  The  Book  of  Acts  in  the 
earlier  chapters  uses  a  Hebraistic  source,  giving 
an  account  of  the  origin  of  the  Church  at  Jeru- 
salem and  the  development  of  Christianity  from 
Jerusalem  as  a  centre  to  Antioch,  the  capital  of 
Syria.  This  source  is  used  by  Luke  in  a  similar 
way  to  his  use  of  Mark  for  his  Gospel.  Mark, 
as  internal  evidence  shows,  was  the  most  natural 
person  to  have  written  this  narrative.  He  was 
near  to  St.  Peter,  his  mother's  house  was  the 
gathering  place  of  the  early  Christians,1  he  was 


1  Acts  xii.  12 


FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS          113 

present  as  an  eye-witness  of  many  of  the  remark- 
able scenes  which  are  described.  If  he  wrote 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  he  would  also  for  a  similar 
reason  naturally  write  the  story  of  the  Jerusa- 
lem church.  As  he  depended  upon  St.  Peter 
for  the  one,  so  he  depended  upon  St.  Peter  as 
well  as  himself  for  the  other.  If  the  Jerusa- 
lem source  of  Acts  was  a  continuation  of  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus,  we  can  understand  better  why 
the  Gospel  of  Mark  was  the  beginning  of  that 
Gospel.1  Luke,  when  he  distinguished  between 
his  former  treatise,  his  Gospel,  and  the  Book  of 
Acts,  his  later  treatise,  simply  followed  his  pred- 
ecessor and  probable  source,  Mark.  In  the 
opening  of  Acts  he  tells  us  that  Jesus  "shewed 
himself  alive  after  His  Passion  by  many  proofs, 
appearing  unto  them  by  the  space  of  forty  days, 
and  speaking  the  things  concerning  the  king- 
dom of  God."2  Two  appearances  after  resur- 
rection are  given  in  the  subsequent  narrative: 
(1)  one  in  Jerusalem  to  the  apostles  when  He 
charged  them  to  wait  for  the  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Spirit ;  (2)  the  other  to  the  apostles  when 
they  asked  Him  respecting  the  restoration  of  the 
kingdom  to  Israel,  which  was  at  the  time  of  the 

1  Seep.  135.  2  Acts  i.  3. 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

ascension.1  It  is  altogether  probable  that  both 
of  these  came  from  the  Jerusalem  source.  Turn- 
ing now  to  the  appendix  to  Mark,  we  find  the 
last  of  these  appearances  condensed  in  Mark  xvi. 
19,  20,  and  the  former  in  Mark  xvi.  14. 

Mark  xvi.  12,  13,  gives  a  condensed  narrative 
of  the  appearance  of  Jesus  to  the  two  disciples 
at  Emmaus,  fully  reported  in  Luke  xxiv.  13-35. 
Mark  xvi.  9-11  gives  an  account  of  an  appear- 
ance to  Mary  Magdalene.  This  appearance  is 
not  given  by  Luke,  but  is  given  by  Matthew 
xxiii.  9,  10,  attached  to  the  story  given  by  Mark 
of  the  visit  to  the  tomb  by  the  Magdalene  and 
the  other  women.  It  is  also  given  by  John  xx. 
11-18,  attached  to  the  same  event.  On  the 
whole,  therefore,  it  seems  probable  that  though 
the  appendix  of  Mark  does  not  come  from  Mark, 
it  yet  is  a  condensation  of  the  story  of  the  resur- 
rection, given  by  Mark  at  the  beginning  of  his 
Jerusalem  source  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  which 
was  added  to  the  Gospel  by  a  later  editor  to 
give  it  a  completion,  after  the  Gospel  had  been 
detached  from  its  continuation. 

We  would  have  then  in  the  narrative  of  the 
original  Mark  (1)  the  appearance  to  the  Magda- 


1  Actsi.  4-11. 


FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS          115 

lene,  (2)  the  appearance  to  the  two  at  Emmaus, 

(3)  the  appearance  to  the  Eleven  in  Jerusalem, 

(4)  the  appearance  to  the  disciples  at  the  time  of 
the   ascension.      If  so   much  is  true,  it  is  also 
probable  that  the  appearance  to  Peter,  appended 
to  the  story  of  the  appearance  to  the  two  at 
Emmaus,1  was  derived  from  Mark,  the  Petrine 
source,  and   it  is  improbable  that  Mark  would 
give  the  message  of  Jesus  to  the  disciples  and 
Peter,  that  He  would  appear  to  them  in  Galilee, 
and  not  give  an  account  of  that  appearance  to 
Peter,  if  he  gave  any  appearance  at  all.     It  is 
probable  also  that  we  must  add  to  the  five  ap- 
pearances already  mentioned,  the  sixth  in  Galilee, 
reported   in   Matthew   xxviii.   16-20.      This    is 
doubtless  the  same  as  the  appearance  of  Mark 
xvi.    15-18,   which,   however,   is    so    condensed 
that  it  appears  as  if  given  in  connection  with 
the    previous    appearance  reported  by  Mark  in 
Jerusalem.     When  now  we  compare   these  six 
appearances  with  the   six  given  by  Paul  at  an 
earlier   date,  three  are  in  both — namely  (1)  to 
Peter,  (2)  to  the  Eleven,  (3)  to  all  the  apostles. 
Three  are  peculiar  to  Paul,   namely  (1)  to  the 
five  hundred,  (2)  to  James,  (3)  to  Paul.     Three 


Luke  xxiv.  34, 


116       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

are  peculiar  to  Mark,  (1)  to  the   Magdalene,  (2) 
to  the  two  disciples,  (3)  at  the  ascension. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  consider  the  reports 
of  the  other  Gospels,  so  far  as  they  have  not  al- 
ready been  considered.  We  find  nothing  addi- 
tional in  Matthew  or  in  Luke.  They  depend  in 
fact  upon  the  original  Mark  for  their  narrative 
here  as  elsewhere.  It  is  no  more  likely  that  we 
would  find  additional  material  to  any  extent  in 
their  narrative  of  the  resurrection  than  in  their 
other  narratives.  The  Gospel  of  John,  however, 
gives  us  additional  information  here  as  elsewhere. 
It  enlarges  upon  the  appearance  to  the  Eleven, 
by  stating  that  Jesus  appeared  at  first  to  ten  in 
the  upper  room,  where  the  Lord's  supper  was 
instituted,  Thomas  being  absent,1  on  the  day  of 
the  resurrection  ;  and  that  in  the  next  week  He 
appeared  again  to  the  Eleven,  Thomas  being 
present. 

John  also  reports  an  appearance  to  the  seven 
on  the  sea  of  Galilee,2  thus  two  additional  ones. 
Accordingly  we  have  ten  appearances  of  Jesus  in 
all  before  His  ascension,  the  one  to  Paul  being 
subsequent  to  the  ascension. 

A  careful  study  of  these  appearances  extending3 


1  John  xx.  19-25.  2  John  xxi.  7-23.  3  Acts  i.  3. 


FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS          117 

during  forty  days  of  the  fifty  between  Passover 
and  Pentecost  enables  us  to  see  a  certain  natural 
and  appropriate  progress  in  them.  We  distin- 
guish those  in  Jerusalem  from  those  in  Galilee. 
Those  in  Galilee  divide  those  in  Jerusalem  into 
two  divisions,  so  that  we  really  have  three  stages  : 
(I.)  Those  in  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  the  resur- 
rection and  on  the  next  Sunday.  There  were 
four  appearances  on  the  day  of  resurrection,  (1) 
to  Mary  Magdalene,  (2)  to  Peter,  (3-)  to  Cleopas 
and  his  companion,  (4)  to  the  Ten  in  the  room  of 
the  Lord's  Supper.  (5)  There  was  an  appear- 
ance on  the  second  Sunday  to  the  Eleven. 

(II.)  Those  in  Galilee  were  :  (6)  to  the  Eleven 
on  a  mountain,  (7)  to  the  Seven  by  the  Sea.  It 
is  probable  that  (8)  the  appearance  to  the  five 
hundred  reported  by  Paul  also  occurred  in  Gali- 
lee, and  also  (9)  the  appearance  to  James,  the 
Lord's  brother. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  these  may  be 
arranged  on  the  third,  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  Sun- 
days after  the  resurrection,  giving  us,  therefore, 
about  a  month  of  the  forty  days  for  the  appear- 
ances in  Galilee  ;  which  indeed  is  altogether 
probable  in  itself.  It  is  unlikely  that  the  dis- 
ciples would  remain  in  Jerusalem  more  than  a 
week  after  Passover,  and  so  long  only  for  good 


118      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

reasons.  They  would  naturally  go  to  their  homes 
in  Galilee,  and  the  appearances  of  Jesus  to  the 
disciples  there  would  be  the  ones  that  would  con- 
firm their  faith  in  Him  and  rally  them  to  His 
cause.  It  is  possible  that  there  may  have  been 
other  appearances  not  reported  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. But  it  is  of  no  slight  importance  that 
at  least  one  of  those  reported  may  be  assigned  to 
each  of  the  Sundays  following  the  resurrection. 
These  appearances  of  Jesus  on  successive  Sun- 
days may  have  given  origin  to  the  assembling  of 
Christians  on  that  day,  and  also  to  the  use  of  the 
term  the  Lord's  day. 

(III.)  One  other  appearance  (10)  is  assigned 
to  Jerusalem,  and  that  at  the  close  of  the  forty 
days,  for  the  final  interview  and  the  ascension 
from  the  Mount  of  Olives.  If  we  suppose  that 
forty  is  a  round  number,  we  have  the  forty-second 
day,  the  sixth  Sunday,  or  sixth  Lord's  day  after 
the  resurrection,  only  a  week  before  the  Lord's 
day  of  Pentecost.  It  is  altogether  probable  that 
Jesus  would  choose  a  Lord's  day  for  His  ascen- 
sion. The  disciples  went  up  to  Jerusalem  the 
week  before  Pentecost,  doubtless  because  they 
had  been  so  advised  by  Jesus,  and  they  were  to 
wait  in  Jerusalem  for  the  promised  advent  of  the 
Spirit.  They  saw  Jesus  ascend  into  heaven  on 


FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS          119 

the  sixth  Lord's  day  after  His  resurrection. 
On  the  seventh  Lord's  day  the  divine  Spirit 
came  upon  them  as  His  coronation  gift,  endow- 
ing them  with  the  authority  and  energy  to  organ- 
ize the  Christian  Church. 

If  we  study  these  appearances  of  Jesus  during 
these  forty  days,  we  see  clearly  that  Paul  was 
justified  in  classing  the  manifestation  to  himself 
with  the  manifestations  to  the  others.  They 
were  all,  indeed,  revelations  or  manifestations— 
Christophanies.  Only  from  this  point  of  view 
can  they  be  understood.  It  was  indeed  the  same 
Jesus  who  died  and  rose  again,  but  He  was  not 
in  all  respects  the  same.  His  body  saw  no  cor- 
ruption, but  it  did  show  transformation  by  which 
it  became  incorruptible.  The  body  of  Jesus  was 
visible  or  invisible  as  He  chose  to  make  it  so. 
He  was  so  different  that  He  could  not  be  recog- 
nized even  by  His  intimates,  unless  He  made 
Himself  known  to  them.  His  body  was  not 
subject  to  the  laws  which  govern  physical  sub- 
stance. It  was  a  body  which  might  be  touched 
and  handled,  exhibiting  the  marks  of  the  cross, 
which  might  be  felt  as  well  as  seen.  He  ate 
with  His  disciples  on  one  occasion.  And  yet 
even  in  His  first  appearances  in  Jerusalem  He 
entered  and  left  rooms  without  the  use  of  en- 


120      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

trances,  as  if  He  were  a  spirit.  And  on  the  day 
of  ascension  His  body  was  not  subject  to  the 
laws  of  gravitation,  but  ascended  into  the  air 
and  disappeared  in  the  sky.  Although  we  may 
say  that  He  appeared  to  His  disciples  for  a  short 
time  on  seven  different  days,  yet  on  all  other 
days  except  these  seven,  and  for  the  greater  part 
of  these  days,  He  was  invisible,  leading  not  an 
ordinary  human  life,  but  the  life  of  a  spirit.  We 
may  see  during  these  forty  days  indeed,  a  grad- 
ual transformation  of  the  earthly  body  into  a 
body  prepared  for  the  abode  of  spirits. 

These  appearances  of  Jesus  to  His  disciples 
were  not  merely  to  show  Himself  to  them  and 
convince  them  that  He  was  indeed  risen,  they 
were  also  for  purposes  of  instruction.  This  is 
evident  from  the  statements  of  the  Gospels. 
They  all  represent  that  Jesus  gave  a  final  com- 
mission to  the  Twelve.  This  is  briefly  stated  in 
varying  terms  in  the  Gospels.  But  it  is  alto- 
gether probable,  as  1  have  shown  elsewhere,1  that 
a  considerable  amount  of  the  material  given  by 
Matthew,  and  even  Luke,  in  connection  with  the 
Commission  of  the  Twelve  and  the  Seventy,  for 


1   The  Apostolic  Commission,  Art.  i.  in  Studies  in  Honor  of  B. 
L.  Gildersleeve. 


FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS 

their  missionary  journeys  in  Galilee  and  Persea, 
belonged  really  to  the  final  commission,  topical 
reasons  alone  justifying  the  present  arrangement. 
The  commission,  as  most  fully  given  in  John,  is 
to  the  Seven  on  the  sea,  and  especially  Peter.1 
But  a  more  limited  statement  is  made  of  a  com- 
mission in  connection  with  the  appearance  to  the 
Ten.2  It  is  altogether  probable  that  a  part  of 
this  commission  is  reported  out  of  place  for 
topical  reasons  in  John  xv.-xvi.  And  the  final 
prayer  of  Jesus  for  His  disciples,  John  xvii., 
would  certainly  suit  much  better  a  final  inter- 
view just  before  the  Ascension,  than  where  it 
now  is,  just  before  the  Passion. 

Luke  tells  us  that  Jesus  gave  His  disciples 
full  instruction  respecting  His  fulfilment  of  the 
Messianic  predictions  of  the  Old  Testament.3  It 
was  to  be  expected  that  He  would  do  just  this 
thing  after  His  resurrection,  and  we  can  hardly 
explain  the  preaching  of  the  Twelve  as  reported 
in  the  Book  of  Acts,  based  on  the  Jerusalem 
source,  without  some  such  instruction  as  this. 

The  report  of  the  institution  of  the  Lord's 
supper  in  the  Synoptists  is  absent  from  the  nar- 
rative of  John.  It  does  not  altogether  agree 


1  John  xxi.  2  John  xx.  19-23.  3  Luke  xxiv.  44-46. 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

with  the  report  of  Paul.  We  could  not  prove 
from  the  Synoptists  that  it  was  anything  more 
than  the  institution  of  the  new  Covenant,  ob- 
served once  for  all.  But  Paul  tells  us  that  it 
was  instituted  as  a  permanent  institution  until 
the  second  advent  of  the  Lord,  and  that  it  rep- 
resented not  only  a  new  Covenant,  but  that  it 
stands  for  the  Christian  annual  Passover,  and 
also  for  all  the  thank-offerings  and  peace-offer- 
ings of  the  old  dispensation,  involving  frequent 
observance.1 

The  narratives  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  based  on 
the  Jerusalem  source,  report  the  observance  of 
the  Lord's  supper  as  a  habit  of  the  Christians 
from  the  beginning.2  When  now  we  turn  to 
the  Gospel  of  John,3  we  find  a  specific  command 
to  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  Christ  as 
a  condition  of  everlasting  life.  This  can  be  un- 
derstood with  difficulty  in  its  present  context. 
It  clearly  refers  to  the  Holy  Eucharist,  but  it  is 
given  here  out  of  place,  before  its  institution,  be- 
cause of  its  parallelism  in  topic  with  the  bread 
from  heaven,  about  which  Jesus  has  been  dis- 
coursing. It  is  probable  that  these  words  have 

1  1  Cor.  v.  7,  x.  16-21,  xi.  23-26.      See  Messiah  of  the  Apos- 
tles, pp.  100  seq. 

2  Acts  ii.  42,  xx.  7-11.  3  John  vi.  51-57. 


FORTY  DAYS  OF  THE  RISEN  JESUS 

been  taken  from  a  post-resurrection  discourse  of 
Jesus;  that  this  is  just  the  discourse  upon  which 
the  perpetual  observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
depends ;  that  Paul  has  combined  in  his  narra- 
tive the  discourse  on  the  night  of  the  betrayal 
with  this  post-resurrection  discourse ;  and  that 
the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper  of  the  early 
Christians  depends  upon  this  combined  teaching.1 
There  must  have  been  similar  teaching  of  Jesus 
as  to  Baptism,  for  there  is  a  mysterious  gap  be- 
tween the  Baptism  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Bap- 
tism of  the  Apostolic  History.  It  is  true  the 
command  to  baptize  is  in  the  apostolic  commis- 
sion, but  there  are  many  questions  which  must 
have  arisen,  which  seem  to  have  occasioned  no 
difficulty  in  the  practice  of  the  Apostolic  Church. 
The  commission  of  the  Twelve  is  evident 
enough  in  the  Gospels  ;  but  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  Seventy?  They  doubtless  are  at  the  basis 
of  the  larger  group  of  disciples,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  in  number,  who  appear  in  Jerusalem,  wait- 
ing for  the  advent  of  the  Spirit,  from  whom  the 
successor  of  Judas  was  chosen,2  and  who,  equally 
with  the  Twelve,  received  the  endowment  of  the 


1  See  Messiah  of  the  Gospels,  pp.  122  seq. 

2  Acts  i.  21-26. 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

divine  Spirit.  They  reappear  doubtless  in  the 
prophets  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  of  whom  Bar- 
nabas was  the  most  eminent.  How  far  they 
shared  the  commission  given  to  the  Twelve,  the 
Gospels  do  not  inform  us.  The  appearance  to 
the  five  hundred,  reported  by  Paul,  could  hardly 
have  been  without  some  instruction  on  the  part 
of  Jesus.  We  are  justified,  therefore,  in  the  con- 
clusion that  we  must  assign  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  to  His  appear- 
ances after  His  resurrection.  It  is  upon  the  ex- 
periences of  these  forty  days,  as  much  as  upon 
the  year  and  a  half  of  the  previous  ministry  of 
Jesus,  that  the  faith  and  life  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  was  grounded. 


XI 

THE   SYNOPTIC   PROBLEM 

THE  three  Gospels,  Matthew,  Mark,  and 
Luke,  are  named  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
They  have  so  much  material  that  is  common,  and 
this  material  is  in  great  measure  so  alike  in  sub- 
stance and  form,  that  it  is  impossible  to  explain 
it  on  the  basis  of  independent  oral  sources.  Writ- 
ten sources  certainly  lie  at  the  basis  of  a  large 
part  of  the  material  that  is  common  to  them. 

It  is  agreed  by  the  vast  majority  of  recent 
critics,  and  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  sure  result 
of  criticism,  that  these  three  Gospels  depend 
upon  the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew,  composed,  as 
Papias  tells  us,  in  the  Hebrew  language.  It  is 
also  agreed  that  Mark  is  the  earliest  of  the  three 
Synoptic  Gospels,  and  that  Matthew  and  Luke 
use  the  original  Mark  as  well  as  the  Logia  of  St. 
Matthew  as  their  source.  When  now  we  come 
to  consider  the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew  there  are 
several  problems  that  have  not  yet  been  solved 
by  common  consent. 


126       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

1.  Notwithstanding  Eusebius  reports1  that 
Papias  represented  that  the  Logia  was  written  in 
the  Hebrew  language,  a  large  number  of  scholars 
insist  that  by  Hebrew  he  meant  Aramaic,  the 
language  spoken  by  the  Jews  of  Palestine  in  the 
time  of  our  Lord.  The  most  prominent  advo- 
cate of  this  opinion  in  recent  times  is  Dalman.2 
I  myself  held  that  opinion  for  many  years  be- 
fore Dalman  discussed  the  subject.  But,  as  I 
said  in  1897,3  "  A  special  study  of  all  the  sup- 
posed material  of  the  Logia  has  since  convinced 
me  that  the  original  was  Hebrew."  Resch4  has 
since  given  abundant  evidence  for  this  opinion, 
in  his  discussion  of  the  subject  and  his  attempt 
to  give  the  Logia  in  the  original  Hebrew.  The 
arguments  of  Dalman,  in  favor  of  an  Aramaic 
original,  seem  quite  strong,  especially  to  those 
wrho  have  not  made  an  independent  study  of  the 
question ;  but  they  amount  to  no  more  than  an 
Aramaic  original  of  some  words  of  Jesus  and 
His  disciples.  All  admit  that  Jesus  and  His  dis- 


1  Church  History,  III.,xxiv.6  ;  xxxix.  16.   Trans.  McGiffert, 
pp.  152,  173. 

2  Dalman,  Die  Worle  Jesus,  1898  ;  cf.  Meyer,  Jesu   Mutter- 
sprache,  1896. 

3  Expository  Times,  June,  1897. 

4  Resch,  Die  Logia  Jesu,  1898. 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  127 

ciples  used  the  Aramaic  in  their  speech.  This  is 
not  the  question ;  but  it  is  whether  the  written 
Logia  was  in  Aramaic  or  Hebrew.  The  evi- 
dences for  an  Aramaic  original  given  by  Dalman 
prove  no  more  than  Aramaic  original  speech. 
But  the  arguments  for  a  Hebrew  original,  so  far 
as  they  are  valid,  prove  a  written  Hebrew  origi- 
nal, for  all  admit  that  Hebrew  was  not  the  speech 
of  our  Lord. 

In  fact,  it  is  altogether  improbable  that  Mat- 
thew would  have  written  his  Gospel  in  Aramaic. 
Aramaic  was  the  language  of  speech  and  not  the 
language  of  literature.  No  literature  of  any 
importance  in  the  Aramaic  language  is  known 
from  the  times  of  our  Lord.  The  literary  lan- 
guage of  all  educated  Jews  in  Palestine  and  the 
East  at  that  time  was  Hebrew.  Anyone  who 
could  read,  could  read  Hebrew.  Hebrew  was 
not  only  the  sacred  language  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament Scriptures,  but  also  of  all  the  Apoc- 
rypha and  Pseudepigrapha,  except  of  the  few 
written  in  Greek  for  the  Hellenistic  Jews.  The 
sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers  of  the  times  of 
Jesus,  and  subsequently,  are  in  Hebrew.  The 
Mishnayoth  and  the  Baraithoth,  the  earliest  ele- 
ments of  the  Talmud,  and  the  earliest  Commen- 
taries on  the  Old  Testament  among  the  Jews, 


128       NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JEXUti 

were  written  in  Hebrew.  Indeed  it  was  not  until 
many  generations  after  the  death  of  Jesus  that 
Aramaic  became  the  literary  language  of  the 
Jews.  Therefore  there  was  no  motive  for  com- 
posing a  Gospel  in  Aramaic,  and  every  motive 
for  composing  it  in  Hebrew.  The  Aramaic  was 
a  language  of  common  speech,  but  of  many  dia- 
lects, and  there  were  no  great  writings  of  univer- 
sal importance,  and  no  common  literature  to  give 
a  common  standard  for  the  language  throughout 
the  Aramaic-speaking  world.  The  language  of 
Galilee  was  rude  to  the  Jerusalemite,  that  of 
Palestine  difficult  to  understand  by  the  Jews  of 
Babylon.  But  the  Hebrew  language  was  the 
common  sacred  language  of  the  Jewish  world, 
and  anyone  who  wished  to  write  a  religious 
book,  and  especially  one  that  would  be  of  an 
authoritative  character,  was  compelled  by  the 
situation  to  write  it  in  Hebrew.  We  should 
have  no  doubt  therefore  that  the  original  lan- 
guage of  Matthew's  Logia  was  Hebrew. 

2.  Another  problem  of  still  greater  difficulty 
remains  unsolved.  Resch  follows  Weiss  and 
earlier  scholars  generally  in  the  opinion  that  the 
Logia  of  Matthew  gave  not  only  words  of  Jesus, 
but  also  historical  incidents. 

Here  I  must  differ  from  him.     The  Logia,  as 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  129 

I  have  attempted  to  show,1  was  composed  en- 
tirely of  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus — that  is  sayings 
in  the  gnomic  poetic  form,  of  the  type  known 
in  the  Proverbs,  Job,  and  Ecclesiastes  of  the 
Old  Testament,  the  Wisdom  of  Sirach  and  Wis- 
dom of  Solomon  of  the  Apocrypha,  and  the 
sayings  of  the  Fathers  in  the  Mishna.2  These 
sayings  of  Wisdom  represent  a  method  of  teach- 
ing used  by  the  Rabbis  of  the  time  of  Jesus, 
which  Jesus  used  and  in  which  He  excelled  all. 
These  logia,  or  sayings  of  Wisdom,  are  given 
by  the  present  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  several 
great  collections.  The  chief  of  these  is  the  so- 
called  Sermon  on  the  Mount.3  The  other  col- 
lections are  the  Commission  of  the  Twelve,  and 
sayings  on  their  return  from  their  Mission,4  and 
the  Woes  against  the  Pharisees.5  Luke  gives 
this  material  scattered  throughout  his  Gospel, 
attached  frequently  to  historical  incidents,  some 
of  which  are  similar  to  those  of  Mark.  The 
weight  of  evidence,  therefore,  is  in  favor  of  these 
having  been  spoken  on  a  great  number  of  occa- 


1  Articles  upon  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  in  the  Expository  Times 
in  1897. 

2  General  Introduction  to   the  Study  of  Holy  Scripture,  pp. 
385  seq. 

3  Matt,  v.-vii.  4  Matt,  x.,  xi.  5  Matt,  xxiii. 


130        NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

sions  as  a  characteristic  of  Jesus'  teaching,  and 
not  in  three  or  four  great  discourses,  as  Matthew 
arranges  them ;  and  that,  therefore,  the  grouping 
of  them  in  Matthew's  Gospel  is  due  to  the  au- 
thor of  that  Gospel  and  not  to  his  source,  the 
Logia  of  Matthew.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  re- 
cently discovered  collection  of  Logia  of  Jesus,1  in 
which  each  one  is  introduced  by  "  Jesus  says :  "- 
This  peculiarity  is  preserved  frequently  in  Mark, 
but  not  in  Matthew.  On  the  whole,  therefore, 
we  may  conclude  that  Luke  gives  us  the  logia 
more  in  accordance  with  their  order  and  form  in 
the  Logia  of  Matthew,  although  even  Luke  does 
not  hesitate  to  group  them  for  topical  reasons. 
We  have  already  seen2  that  in  all  probability 
Matthew  and  Thomas  were  the  apostolic  pair 
that  accompanied  Jesus  in  the  Persean  ministry. 
It  is  altogether  probable,  therefore,  that  Matthew 
in  his  Logia  gave  the  Persean  logia  together  and 
the  Galilean  logia  together.  It  is  improbable 
that  he  gave  them  all  in  connection  with  the 
Galilean  ministry,  or  in  connection  with  the 
Woes  on  the  Pharisees  in  Passion  Week,  where 
the  present  Gospel  of  Matthew  gives  them.  At 

1  Aoyia  Irjo-ov,  Sayings  of  our   Lord,  from    an  Early  Greek 
Papyrus,  discovered  and  edited  by  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  1897. 

2  See  p.  76. 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  131 

the  same  time  it  is  unlikely  that  many  of  them 
had  any  more  than  a  brief  statement  of  the  occa- 
sion ;  and  it  is  probable  that  in  many  cases  they 
were  simply  introduced  by  the  words — "Jesus 
said "  —when  it  was  deemed  unimportant  to 
mention  the  incident  out  of  which  they  sprang. 
Unless  this  be  so,  it  is  difficult  to  understand, 
and  indeed  impossible  to  explain,  how  the  author 
of  the  present  Gospel  of  Matthew  threw  away 
such  a  large  number  of  historical  incidents  and 
utterly  disregarded  them,  when  he  gave  these 
logia  in  the  several  great  collections.  And  this 
is  all  the  more  inexplicable  that  his  Gospel  bears 
the  name  of  Matthew,  because  it  was  supposed 
Matthew's  Logia  was  its  essential  substance. 
This  argument  is  still  more  insuperable  if,  with 
Weiss,  Resch,  and  most  scholars,  we  suppose 
that  the  Logia  comprised  so  great  a  portion  of 
the  historical  material  given  in  Matthew  and 
Mark.  How  then  can  we  explain  on  the  one 
hand  the  drastic  way  in  which  Luke  attaches  so 
great  a  portion  of  the  logia  to  incidents  of  the 
Persean  ministry,  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  no 
less  drastic  way  in  which  the  author  of  Matthew's 
Gospel  takes  the  logia  out  of  their  historical  con- 
nection and  gives  them  in  several  great  groups? 
If  we  suppose  that  the  Logia  of  Matthew  con- 


132       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

tained  so  large  an  amount  of  historical  material 
as  Resch  gives  in  his  reconstruction,  all  coming 
from  Matthew,  an  eye-witness,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  Luke,  the  best  historian  of  the  New 
Testament,  could  have  taken  such  liberties  with 
a  source  of  so  great  authority.  It  is  also  diffi- 
cult to  find  a  sufficient  amount  of  original  ma- 
terial in  Mark,  not  derived  from  the  supposed 
Logia,  to  justify  the  tradition,  even  more 
strongly  supported  than  the  authorship  of  the 
Logia  of  Matthew,  that  Mark  depended  upon 
St.  Peter  for  his  source.  The  historical  mate- 
rial given  in  the  Logia  of  Resch  is  not  very  much 
less  than  what  we  are  obliged  to  find  in  the 
original  Mark.  The  conclusion  which  seems  on 
the  whole  most  probable  is  that  the  Logia  con- 
tained only  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus  arranged  very 
much  in  the  order  in  which  the  logia  appear  in 
Luke,  with  occasional  brief  statements  of  the 
occasion  on  which  they  were  uttered. 

The  historical  material  of  the  three  Synoptists 
was  derived  from  the  original  Mark.  The  gen- 
eral opinion  among  modern  critics  is  that  the 
original  Mark  differed  but  slightly  from  the 
canonical  Mark.  All  admit  certain  additions, 
the  chief  of  which  is  the  Appendix.1  Other  ad- 

1  Mark  xvi.  9  seq. 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  133 

ditions  here  and  there  must  be  recognized.  Un- 
less the  whole  of  the  eschatological  discourse1 
be  an  addition,  we  must  certainly  suppose  that 
of  the  several  duplicates  contained  there,  one  of 
each  is  an  addition.  If  the  story  of  the  feeding 
of  the  five  thousand 2  is  only  a  variation  of  the 
feeding  of  the  four  thousand,3  one  of  them  is 
an  addition  to  the  Gospel.  It  is  probable  that 
the  logia  respecting  the  sin  against  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  of  Beelzebub,4  attached  by  Matthew 
and  Luke 5  to  an  appropriate  historical  incident, 
is  not  only  attached  by  Mark  to  the  wrong  inci- 
dent, and  at  too  early  a  date,  against  the  usage 
of  Mark,  but  is  an  addition  to  Mark  by  a  second 
hand.6  There  are  several  other  groups  of  logia 
that  are  not  in  harmony  with  their  context,  and 
seem  to  come  from  a  second  hand.  Other  im- 
portant additions  may  be  detected  in  other  places 
in  the  Gospel.  And  so  it  seems  improbable  that 
the  original  Mark  used  the  Logia  of  Matthew. 
When  these  additions  have  all  been  stripped  off, 


1  Mark  xiii.  2  Mark  vi.  34  seq. 

3  Mark  viii.  1  seq.  *  Mark  iii.  22-30. 

5  Matt.  xii.  22  seq.;  Luke  xi.  14  seq. 

6  I   have  made  a   special  study  of  all  the  logia  used  in 
Mark,  which   I  hope  soon  to  publish.     The  opinion  given 
above  is  the  result  of  that  study. 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

there  remains  a  Gospel  of  considerable  bulk,  giv- 
ing few  discourses  of  Jesus,  but  a  general  outline 
of  His  brief  ministry.  Internal  evidence  confirms 
the  ancient  tradition  that  the  preaching  of  Peter 
underlies  this  Gospel.  It  knows  only  of  a  Gali- 
lean ministry  and  Passion  week  in  Jerusalem. 
It  knows  nothing  of  the  ministry  in  Persea  of 
Luke,  or  of  the  Jerusalem  ministry  of  John. 
The  reason  was  that  St.  Peter  confined  his  testi- 
mony to  what  he  himself  had  seen  and  heard. 
He  was  not  with  Jesus  during  the  Jerusalem  or 
the  Persean  ministries,  and  therefore  these  do  not 
appear  in  his  Gospel. 

The  present  Mark  was  prepared  for  Gentile 
Christians  in  the  Greek  language.  The  question 
now  arises  as  to  the  language  of  the  original 
Mark.  It  is  the  general  opinion  that  St.  Mark 
wrote  in  Greek.  But  St.  Peter  and  St.  Mark 
were  both  Jews.  Hebrew  was  the  language 
that  they  would  use,  if  the  Gospel  was  written 
originally  for  Jewish  Christians,  even  if  these 
were  in  Rome.  I  agree,  therefore,  with  Resch 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  historical  material  at 
the  basis  of  the  Synoptists  came  from  a  Hebrew 
source.  I  disagree  with  him  in  that  he  thinks  of 
one  source,  St.  Matthew,  whereas  I  think  of 
two, — the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew  for  the  Wisdom 


;    UNIVERSITY 

\ 

THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  135 

of  Jesus,  and  the  Petrine  Mark  for  the  Galilean 
ministry  and  Passion  week.  These  were  the 
two  written  sources  of  the  Synoptists.  The 
Greek  Mark  is  a  translation  of  the  original  Mark 
with  an  occasional  use  of  the  Logia  of  Matthew, 
and  other  additions. 

It  is  also  my  opinion,  which  I  share  with 
Blass,1  that  Mark  was  the  author  of  the  Jerusa- 
lem source  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  written  also  in 
the  Hebrew  language,  based  also  on  Peter's 
preaching;  and  that  this  was  a  second  part,  or 
continuation  of  the  Gospel  of  Mark.2 

The  Greek  Gospel  of  Matthew  uses  the  original 
Mark  as  the  framework  for  the  history,  and  there- 
fore limits  itself  to  the  Galilean  ministry  and  Pas- 
sion week.  But  it  uses  also  the  Logia  of  St. 
Matthew  and  arranges  the  material  in  great  collec- 
tions on  the  framework  of  the  narrative  of  Mark. 
The  parables  of  Matthew  are  additional  to  Mark. 
Some  of  them  are  given  by  Luke  in  connection 
with  the  Perasan  ministry  and  derived  from  oral 
tradition,  as  their  different  versions  clearly  show. 
Matthew  also  groups  these  parables  about  the 


1  Blass,  Ada  Apost.  1896,  s.  iv.seq.;  Philology  of  the  Gospels, 
1898,  pp.  141  seq.  See  also  the  earlier  query  of  Weiss,  Marcus 
evangelism,  1872,  s.  511. 

*  See  pp.  112  seq. 


136       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

kindred  parables  of  Mark,  making  chiefly  four 
collections:  (1)  The  parables  of  the  Kingdom, 
(2)  The  parables  of  Instruction  of  the  Disciples 
on  His  last  journey  to  Jerusalem,  (3)  the  para- 
bles attached  to  the  conflict  with  the  Pharisees 
in  Passion  week,  and  (4)  the  parables  attached 
to  the  eschatological  discourse.1  Matthew  also 
gives  a  brief  gospel  of  the  infancy  of  Jesus, 
which  we  reserve  for  special  consideration. 

The  Gospel  of  Luke  uses  the  same  two  sources 
as  Matthew,  only  he  adds  to  them  material  de- 
rived from  other  sources  oral  and  written.  In 
the  main  he  follows  the  order  of  Mark  in  the 
first  part  of  his  Gospel,  and  gives  his  additional 
material  in  the  second  part  of  his  Gospel,  before 
the  final  crisis  in  Passion  week.  This  additional 
material,  while  it  is  composed  of  several  impor- 
tant events,  doubtless  of  the  Pereean  ministry, 
derived  probably  from  an  oral  source,  is  chiefly 
composed  of  parables  and  logia.  In  his  use  of 
the  Logia  in  the  first  part  of  his  work,  he  un- 
doubtedly gives  us  the  correct  version  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the  Commission  of 
the  Twelve  ;  and  so  in  all  probability  the  proper 
historical  connection  of  the  most  of  the  other 

1  See  p.  74. 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  137 

logia.  We  may  therefore  conclude  that  the 
logia  assigned  by  him  to  the  Persean  ministry 
also  for  the  most  part  belong  there  ;  and  that  in 
this  he  follows  the  Logia  of  Matthew,  only  that 
in  the  Logia  of  Matthew,  the  logia  given  by 
Luke  in  the  Persean  ministry,  detached  from 
those  which  he  gives  in  the  Galilean  ministry, 
were  not  so  clearly  attached  to  a  Persean  minis- 
try and  historical  incidents,  that  the  author  of 
Matthew's  Gospel  was  debarred  from  using  them 
in  another  connection.  The  most  of  the  para- 
bles given  by  Luke  in  this  section  of  his  gospel 
are  of  a  very  different  character  from  those 
given  in  Mark  and  Matthew.  They  are  parables 
of  grace  and  salvation.  They  were  doubtless 
derived  from  an  oral  source,  and  are  most  appro- 
priate in  the  Persean  ministry.  I  see  no  reason 
to  follow  Weiss  and  think  of  a  written  source 
other  than  the  two  already  given,  for  this  section 
of  Luke.  The  incidents  are  too  few  to  justify 
such  a  conclusion. 

Luke  gives,  in  his  earlier  chapters,  an  extend- 
ed gospel  of  the  infancy  of  Jesus,  which  he  must 
have  derived  from  other  sources  of  information 
than  those  already  considered.  This  we  must 
reserve  for  special  consideration. 

And  so  the  three  Synoptic  Gospels  gradually 


138      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

came  into  existence.  The  Logia  of  Matthew 
and  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark  were  the  fundamental 
Gospels  written  in  the  Hebrew  language,  having 
apostolic  origin  from  eye-  and  ear- witnesses  of  the 
ministry  of  Jesus.  The  composition  of  the  other 
Gospels  was  due  in  part  to  the  needs  of  the 
Gentile  world,  and  so  these  original  Gospels  were 
translated  with  explanations.  There  was  also 
an  increasing  demand  for  more  information  as  to 
the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  which  could  be 
satisfied  only  by  searching  out  other  eye-wit- 
nesses and  ear- witnesses,  who  could  testify  as  to 
the  things  they  had  seen  and  heard  and  knew. 
The  author  of  Matthew's  Gospel  did  but  little  of 
this ;  but  Luke,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  was  zeal- 
ous and  painstaking  ;  and  his  Gospel,  when  com- 
pared with  the  others,  amply  justifies  and  attests 
his  own  statements.  St.  Luke  wrote  last  of  the 
three.  His  work  was  certainly  unknown  to  the 
author  of  Matthew's  Gospel.  He  wrote  his 
Gospel  before  he  wrote  the  Book  of  Acts.  He 
was  the  physician  and  pupil  of  St.  Paul.  But 
he  was  not  his  companion  on  his  travels  as  tradi- 
tion has  wrongly  inferred.  According  to  the 
New  Testament  he  first  appears  in  connection 
with  St.  Paul  at  the  close  of  his  life  in  Rome,1 


1  Col.  iv.  14. 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM  139 

and  therefore  was  a  younger  man  than  tradition 
allows.  His  Gospel  was  written  subsequent  to 
the  death  of  the  great  apostle;  subsequent  also, 
as  internal  evidence  shows,  to  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans,  probably  in  the 
eighties  of  the  first  century.  Many  of  the  first 
disciples  of  Jesus  had  died,  but  many  others  were 
still  living — and,  indeed,  a  sufficient  number  to 
secure  testimony  of  the  first  historical  impor- 
tance. Without  the  Gospel  of  Luke  a  serious 
loss  would  be  felt  in  our  knowledge  of  the  min- 
istry of  Jesus. 


XII 

THE    COMPOSITION    OF   THE   GOSPEL   OF    JOHN 

TWO  antagonistic  views  have  been  battling 
for  a  century  with  regard  to  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Gospel  of  John.  The  traditional 
view  maintains  the  authorship  of  St.  John  the 
apostle.  The  view  held  by  most  critics  is  that  it 
was  the  work  of  a  pupil  of  St.  John.  Many 
strong,  and  indeed  insuperable  arguments  are 
adduced  in  favor  of  the  authorship  of  St.  John. 
Equally  numerous,  strong,  and  insuperable  ar- 
guments are  adduced  against  his  authorship. 
Those  who  take  either  side  of  the  controversy 
depreciate  and  endeavor  to  explain  away  and 
avoid  the  arguments  of  the  other  side,  but  with- 
out success.  Neither  view  has  been  able  to  over- 
come the  other.  The  reason,  as  ought  by  this 
time  to  be  obvious,  is  that  neither  view  is  cor- 
rect. The  problem  cannot  be  solved  by  either 
side  of  this  debate.  Under  these  circumstances 
it  is  remarkable  that  another  method  was  not 
earlier  used  ;  especially  as  the  method  of  analy- 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    141 

sis  has  solved  so  many  problems  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament ;  and  all  the  more  that  the  problems  of 
the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke  have  been 
solved  in  this  way ;  and  those  of  the  Book  of 
Acts  are  in  process  of  solution.  The  Book  of 
Revelations  has  also  been  analyzed  into  several 
documents.1  Several  of  the  Epistles,  such  as 
II.  Corinthians  and  the  Pastorals,  have  been  ex- 
plained in  this  way,  and  even  the  closing  chapter 
of  Romans  must  be  detached  from  that  epistle 
and  given  an  independent  value.2 

The  reason  why  this  method  has  not  been 
used  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  doubtless  the  striking  unity  of  that  Gospel. 
This  unity,  which  is  so  evident,  is  indeed  an  ob- 
struction to  the  method  of  analysis ;  but  it  is 
not  an  insuperable  one.  The  New  Testament 
writers  use  their  sources  in  a  different  way  from 
the  Old  Testament  writers.  It  is  much  easier  to 
analyze  Old  Testament  books  than  New  Testa- 
ment books  for  the  reason  that  the  Old  Tes- 
tament writers  preserve  the  very  language  of 
their  sources,  and  piece  these  together  by  seams 
of  their  own  composition.  The  New  Testament 


1  Messiah  of  the  Apostles,  pp.  284  seq. 

2  General  Introduction,  p.  315. 


NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

writers,  however,  use  their  sources  more  freely, 
condensing,  enlarging,  and  explaining,  and  not 
unfrequently  rewriting,  so  as  to  change  the  lan- 
guage and  style  of  their  originals. 

We  have  also  to  consider,  in  many  cases,  the 
process  of  translation  from  the  Hebrew  into  the 
Greek  language.  This  is  evident  in  the  use  of 
the  poetical  logia  by  Matthew  and  Luke.  It  is 
still  more  the  case  in  the  use  of  the  original  nar- 
ratives of  Mark  by  Matthew  and  Luke.  Luke 
is  much  freer  in  his  use  of  the  original  Mark 
than  Matthew,  and  he  pursues  the  same  method 
in  his  use  of  the  Jerusalem  source  of  the  Book 
of  Acts. 

The  Book  of  Acts  has  indeed  as  striking  a 
unity  as  the  Fourth  Gospel.  This  has  made  the 
work  of  analysis  more  difficult,  and  has  retarded 
it,  so  that  the  problem  has  not  yet  been  fully 
solved ;  but  it  has  not  prevented  critics  from 
using  this  method.  Why,  then,  should  the 
unity  of  the  Gospel  of  John  obstruct  the  analysis 
of  that  Gospel?  No  serious  attempt  to  analyze 
the  Fourth  Gospel  was  made  until  recent  years, 
when  Wendt  undertook  it.1 


1  Wendt,  Das  Johannesevangelium,  1900.  Independent  of 
Wendt,  and  prior  to  the  publication  of  his  views,  I  had  tried 
the  same  method,  and  I  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  this 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    143 

The  very  fact  that  there  are  such  strong  and 
convincing  arguments  both  for  and  against  the 
authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  by  St.  John, 
raises  the  question  whether  the  arguments  for 
his  authorship,  so  far  as  they  are  derived  from 
the  Gospel  itself,  may  not  belong  to  one  strata 
of  the  Gospel,  and  the  arguments  against  his  au- 
thorship to  another  strata  ?  This  is  indeed  the 
true  state  of  the  case.  When  now  we  apply  the 
principles  and  method  of  the  Higher  Criticism 
to  the  analysis  of  this  Gospel,  we  find  that  there 
are  linguistic  and  stylistic  differences,  differences 
of  historical  situation,  differences  of  opinion  and 
conception,  and  the  arguments  from  citation  and 
from  silence  are  not  without  forceful  representa- 
tion. I  cannot,  in  the  space  allotted  to  me  in  the 
proportions  of  this  volume,  undertake  a  full  proof 
of  this  statement.  I  shall  only  give  a  few  speci- 
mens of  evidence. 

(1)  There  is  a  striking  difference  in  the  Gos- 


was  the  only  method  by  which  we  could  solve  the  problem  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  I  published  my  view  without  argument 
in  the  first  edition  of  my  General  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
Holy  Scripture,  1899,  p-  327.  In  essentials,  I  agree  in  my 
analysis  with  Wendt.  We  differ  less  than  the  earlier  analysts 
of  the  Hexateuch,  notwithstanding  the  greater  difficulty  of 
the  analysis. 


144      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 


pel  in  the  use  of  cr^eia,  signs  for  miracles,1  and 
the  use  of  epya,  works.2  All  the  uses  of  cr^/xeta 
are  in  sections  which  are  clearly  from  the  final 
author,  or  may  be  from  him.  The  only  instances 
that  may  be  disputed  are,  Chapter  iii.  2,  in  the 
words  of  Nicodemus,  and  Chapters  iv.  48,  vi.  26, 
in  the  words  of  Jesus,  both  of  which  are  rebukes 
of  the  people  for  sign-seeking.  Jesus  Himself 
always  uses  epya  when  speaking  of  His  own  mir- 
acles. This  is  indeed  in  accordance  with  the 
usage  of  the  New  Testament  elsewhere.  The 
original  Mark  and  the  Logia  always  use  SiW/Aeis 
for  miracles  ;  0-77/^10,  belongs  to  the  later  strata, 
especially  of  Luke.  There  is,  indeed,  in  these 
strata  not  only  a  difference  of  terms,  but  also  an 
earlier  and  a  later  conception  of  the  nature  and 
meaning  of  miracles. 

(2)  A  difference  of  historical  situation  is  in- 
volved in  the  use,  for  the  opponents  of  Jesus 
in  Jerusalem,  of  the  terms  Pharisees  and  Jews. 
The  Synoptic  Gospels  use  Pharisees  for  the  chief 
opponents  of  Jesus.  So  the  use  of  Pharisees  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel  belongs  to  the  original  strata, 

1  John  ii.  11,  18,  23,  iii.  2,  iv.  48,  54,  vi.  2,  14,  26,  30,  vii. 
31,  ix.  16,  x.  41,  xi.  47,  xii.  18,  37,  xx.  30. 

2  John  v.  20,  36,  vii.  3,  21,  ix.  3,  4,  x.  25,  32,  33,  37,  38, 
xiv.  10,  11,  12,  xv.  24. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    145 

but  the  common  use  of  Jews  for  the  enemies 
belongs  to  a  later  strata,  and  indeed  indicates  a 
historical  situation,  when  the  distinction  between 
Jew  and  Christian  had  been  so  sharpened  that 
the  Jew,  as  such,  was  hostile  to  Christ  and 
Christianity.  The  apostle  St.  John  could  never 
have  so  written  about  his  countrymen — he,  least 
of  all  the  apostles,  because  of  his  intimate  asso- 
ciation with  families  in  Jerusalem. 

(3)  A  difference  of  doctrinal  conception  is  rec- 
ognized by  most  scholars  in  the  dogmatic  elabo- 
ration of  the  discourse  of  Jesus  to  Nicodemus,1 
and  of  the  Baptist.2  But  such  dogmatic  exposi- 
tions of  conversations  of  Jesus  are  characteristic 
of  the  Gospel  and  appear  in  most  of  the  sections. 
Thus  in  John  v.  28,  29,  we  have  a  distinct  pre- 
diction of  a  universal  resurrection,  which  is  at- 
tached to  another  and  entirely  different  concep- 
tion of  resurrection.  In  the  Synoptists  there  is 
no  reference  to  a  resurrection  of  the  wicked. 
Without  these  verses  the  Fourth  Gospel  agrees 
with  the  Synoptists.  With  them,  it  agrees  with 
the  latest  strata  of  the  New  Testament.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  this  is  a  dogmatic  addi- 


1  John  iii,  16-21.     See  Messiah  of  the  Apostles,  pp.  515  seq. 

2  John  iii.  31-36. 


146      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

tion  to  the  original  Gospel.  The  situation  at  this 
feast  was  not  so  grave  as  this  writer  represents. 
Jesus  had  not  yet  asserted  His  divinity  as  this 
author  thinks,  when  he  says,  "For  this  cause 
therefore  the  Jews  sought  the  more  to  kill  him, 
because  he  not  only  brake  the  Sabbath,  but  also 
called  God  his  own  Father,  making  himself  equal 
with  God." 1 

A  considerable  amount  of  the  work  of  the 
author  of  the  present  Gospel  may  easily  be 
detected  and  removed.  But  after  that  has  been 
done  we  cannot  say  that  he  has  left  the  Gospel 
in  its  original  form.  He  has  indeed  rewritten 
the  original,  even  to  a  greater  extent  than  Luke 
rewrote  his  sources.  This  is  evident  in  the  use 
of  the  few  logia  preserved  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
where  the  words  and  expressions  are  sometimes 
entirely  different  from  those  of  the  Synoptists, 
and  the  gnomic  form  has  disappeared.2  The 
same  is  true  of  the  conversations  of  Jesus  and 
His  longer  discourses,  and  even  with  the  his- 
torical incidents.  At  the  same  time,  even 
here,  careful  criticism  may  distinguish  the  final 
author's  handiwork,  and  detect  the  original  Gos- 
pel which  underlies  it.  This  rewriting  of  the 


John  v.  18.  2  See  General  Introduction,  pp.  69-70. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    147 

original  was  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
original  Gospel  was  in  the  Hebrew  language, 
and  it  had  become  necessary  to  translate  it  into 
Greek.  Matthew  and  Luke  use  the  Logia  of 
St.  Matthew,  and  the  original  Mark,  in  a  similar 
way.  All  three  of  the  primitive  Gospels  were 
written  by  Hebrews  in  the  Hebrew  language, 
with  which  they  were  familiar,  and  for  the  use  of 
Jewish  Christians.  In  fact  the  Gospel  of  John, 
especially  in  those  parts  which  belong  to  the 
earliest  strata,  is  in  some  respects  the  most 
Hebraistic  of  the  Gospels.  In  none  of  them  are 
there  so  many  explanations  of  Hebrew  and  Ara- 
maic words  and  phrases. 

If  then  we  may  distinguish  an  original  Gospel 
of  John  underlying  the  Fourth  Gospel,  very 
much  as  we  distinguished  a  Gospel  of  Matthew 
underlying  the  first  Gospel,  the  several  remain- 
ing problems  become  easier  of  solution.  It  is 
evident  that  the  original  Gospel  closed  with : 1 
"Many  other  signs  therefore  did  Jesus  in  the 
presence  of  the  disciples,  which  are  not  written 
in  this  book:  but  these  are  written,  that  ye  may 
believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God; 
and  that  believing  ye  may  have  life  in  his  name" 


1  John  xx.  30-31. 


148       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Chapter  xxi.,  as  is  generally  agreed,  was  a  sub- 
sequent addition,  and,  as  we  may  now  say,  by 
a  third  hand;  for  the  concluding  verses1  evi- 
dently came  not  from  the  apostle  St.  John  but 
from  the  second  hand;  as  it  uses  the  term 
orrjjjiela,  expressing  clearly  the  dogmatic  intent 
of  the  author,  and  the  chief  aim  of  the  book,  not 
only  to  show  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  the  Son 
of  God,  but  that  life  is  through  faith  in  Him. 

The  Prologue,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere,2  is 
a  hymn  to  the  Logos,  composed  independently 
of  the  Gospel,  and  prefixed  to  it.  In  the  present 
Gospel  it  is  interwoven  with  the  introduction  to 
the  story  of  the  Baptist,  destroying  in  part  its 
metrical  form.  It  is  probable  that  it  was  not 
attached  to  the  original  Gospel,  but  was  pre- 
fixed by  the  second  hand,  and  interwoven  by  the 
third  hand. 

When  now  we  turn  to  the  Gospel  as  left  by 
the  second  hand,  with  the  hymn  to  the  Logos 
prefixed,  it  begins,  as  Mark  does,  with  a  brief 
account  of  the  preparatory  ministry  of  the  Bap- 
tist, and  concludes  with  the  appearance  of  Jesus, 
after  the  resurrection,  to  the  Eleven  in  Jerusalem. 


1  John  xx.  30-31. 

2  See  Messiah  of  the  Apostles,  pp.  495-515. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    149 

We  have  in  our  previous  studies  seen  abun- 
dant evidence  that  the  material  is  not  arranged 
in  chronological  order  in  the  present  Gospel.1 
It  is  important  that  we  should  briefly  restate  the 
case,  and  consider  whether  the  present  order  is 
due  to  the  original  author  or  to  the  second  hand. 

The  story  of  the  naming  of  St.  Peter  is  at- 
tached to  the  first  meeting  of  Jesus  with  An- 
drew, his  brother,  before  the  first  Galilean  min- 
istry,2 when  it  properly  belongs,  according  to 
the  Synoptists,  at  the  close  of  the  Galilean 
ministry,  in  connection  with  the  Confession 
at  Caesarea  Philippi.3  The  conversation  with 
Nathanael,  with  its  distinct  statement  and  recog- 
nition of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,4  is  undoubt- 
edly also  too  early  to  be  harmonized  with  the 
attitude  of  the  disciples  during  the  early  part  of 
Jesus'  ministry,  according  to  the  Synoptists. 
The  Fourth  Gospel  aims  to  prove  the  Messiah- 
ship  of  Jesus,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  it  places  the  calling  of  disciples,  all  that 
are  mentioned,  in  one  place  at  the  beginning, 
doubtless  for  topical  reasons.  If  this  order  was 
in  the  original  Gospel  of  John,  we  must  recog- 


1  See  pp.  10,  45,  47,  50  seq.  *  John  i.  40-42. 

8  See  General  Introduction,  pp.  514  seq.  *  John  i.  49. 


150      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

nize  that  St.  John  had  the  same  motive  as  his 
pupil,  who  revised  and  edited  his  work.  But 
this  is  improbable,  for  there  is  an  implicit  incon- 
sistency between  the  assured  faith  of  these  dis- 
ciples prior  to  the  ministry,  and  their  expression 
of  that  faith  after  testing.1  The  latter  is  more 
in  accord  with  the  Synoptists,  and  intrinsically 
more  probable. 

The  cleansing  of  the  temple  is  given2  at  a 
Passover  usually  regarded  as  the  first  of  Jesus' 
ministry.  The  same  event  is  given  by  the  Synop- 
tists at  the  last  Passover.  It  is  improbable  that 
this  event  occurred  twice.  Jesus  would  not 
have  been  so  imprudent  as  to  force  an  issue,  and 
so  sharp  and  perilous  an  issue,  at  so  early  a 
date  in  His  ministry.  Furthermore  the  implicit 
reference  to  His  death  and  resurrection 3  is  too 
early  to  be  reconciled  with  Synoptic  statements. 
And  the  reflection  of  the  author4  that  many 
believed  Him  because  they  had  seen  the  cr^ela, 
that  He  wrought,  is  out  of  place  at  so  early 
a  date,  when  the  only  sign  thus  far  wrought, 
according  even  to  the  Gospel  of  John,  was  at 
Cana  of  Galilee,  at  a  marriage  feast  whose  only 
witnesses  were  the  guests  of  the  occasion. 

1  John  vi.  66-69.  2  John  ii.  13-25. 

8  John  ii.  19-22.  4  John  ii.  23. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    151 

The  report  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  itself,  there- 
fore, is  inconsistent  with  this  early  placing  of  the 
event.  The  motive,  again,  is  to  give  a  distinct 
and  public  assertion  of  His  Messiahship,  as  ac- 
cepted by  many  in  Jerusalem,  near  the  beginning 
of  the  Gospel,  immediately  after  the  showing 
forth  of  His  power  at  Cana  of  Galilee. 

The  conversation  with  Nicodemus,1  even  after 
it  has  been  stripped  of  its  later  dogmatic  addi- 
tions, is  still  out  of  place.  It  doubtless  is  not  in 
chronological  order.  It  could  not  be  earlier  than 
the  reference  to  Nicodemus  at  the  feast  of  Tab- 
ernacles.2 It  is  placed  by  Tatian  much  later. 
The  motive  for  the  present  placing  of  the  story  is 
to  set  forth  the  impression  made  by  Jesus  upon 
a  member  of  the  Sanhedrim. 

The  story  of  the  journey  through  Samaria  and 
the  proclaiming  of  His  Messiahship  by  Jesus, 
and  the  faith  of  the  Samaritans  in  Him,3  is  cer- 
tainly too  early — too  early  for  such  an  assertion 
of  His  Messiahship,  and  too  early  for  a  journey 
through  Samaria  northward,  which  implies  a 


1  John  iii.  1-21. 

a  John  vii.  50-52.  The  statement  in  parentheses,  "  he  that 
came  to  him  before,  being  one  of  them/'  verse  50,  is  from  the 
second  or  third  hand. 

3  John  iv.  4-42. 


152       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

peril  which  did  not  exist  until  after  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Lazarus.1  The  motive  for  its  present 
place  in  the  Gospel  is  to  set  forth  the  acceptance 
of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  by  the  Samaritans. 

The  story  of  the  healing  of  the  nobleman's 
son 2  was  probably  not  in  the  original  John,  be- 
cause its  difference  from  the  corresponding  event 
described  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  is  so  great 
that  it  indicates  not  only  different  oral  tradition, 
but  also  a  form  of  statement  which  could  hardly 
have  come  from  St.  John  the  apostle,  who  was 
familiar  with  Capernaum,  and  was  an  eye-witness 
of  the  event,  according  to  the  Synoptists. 

Thus  far  the  Fourth  Gospel  has  set  forth  the 
acceptance  of  Jesus  as  Messiah  by  the  Baptist, 
by  several  disciples,  by  Nicodemus,  a  member  of 
the  Sanhedrim,  by  Galileans,  Judasans,  and  Sa- 
maritans. The  author  now  tells  of  a  series  of 
conflicts  with  the  unbelievers.  The  story  be- 
gins in  Jerusalem,  Chapter  v.,  then  is  transferred 
to  Galilee,  Chapter  vi.,  only  to  return  to  Jerusa- 
lem from  Chapter  vii.  until  the  end. 

Chapter  v.  begins  with  a  reference  to  an  in- 
definite feast.3  All  the  other  feasts  are  definite, 
why  not  this  ?  It  is  improbable  that  St.  John, 


See  pp.  91  seq.  2  John  iv.  46-54.  3  See  p.  51 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    155 

from  whom  the  statements  as  to  the  other  feasts 
came,  did  not  know  what  this  feast  was.  We 
can  only  think  that  the  author  of  the  present 
Gospel  took  this  incident  from  a  connection,  in 
which  the  feast  was  defined,  and  gave  it  a  posi- 
tion in  his  narrative  apart  from  its  historical  in- 
troduction. Otherwise  the  statement  as  to  the 
feast  came  from  a  supposition  of  the  author, 
without  being  in  his  original.  At  all  events, 
Chapter  vi.  is  out  of  place  chronologically.  It 
should  come  after  Chapter  xi.  Its  present  posi- 
tion is  topical,  to  give  the  Galilean  rejection  be- 
fore devoting  attention  to  the  great  struggle  in 
Jerusalem.  It  is  improbable  that  this  was  the 
order  of  the  original  John. 

Chapters  vii.-x.  give  a  series  of  controversial 
dialogues  between  Jesus  and  the  Pharisees  in 
Jerusalem,  separated  by  accounts  of  two  jour- 
neys to  Jerusalem,  one  to  Tabernacles,  one  to 
Dedication;  and  supplemented,  Chapter  xi.,  by  a 
third  journey  to  the  raising  of  Lazarus.  These 
three  events  are  doubtless  in  the  order  given. 
But  it  does  not  by  any  means  follow  that  all  of 
the  material  of  these  chapters  was  originally  in 
the  order  in  which  it  now  appears.  Chapter  vii. 
37-52  gives  a  discourse  on  the  last  and  great  day 
of  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  followed  by  a  delibera- 


154       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

tion  of  the  Sanhedrim  respecting  Jesus.  It  is 
rather  remarkable  that  this  is  followed  by  Chap- 
ter viii.-x.  21,  before  the  material  connected  with 
the  feast  of  Dedication.  The  feast  of  Taber- 
nacles having  closed,  it  was  natural  that  Jesus 
should  depart  with  the  multitudes  from  Jerusa- 
lem, and  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  first 
Persean  ministry  immediately  followed  that  feast.1 
It  is  also  improbable  that  Jesus  would  have  re- 
mained in  Jerusalem  after  the  crisis  reported  at 
the  close  of  Chapter  viii. 

Moreover,  the  material  of  these  chapters  seems 
at  too  early  a  date  for  the  development  of  the 
conflict  with  the  Pharisees.3  This  material  is 
better  suited  to  the  situation  at  the  feast  of 
Dedication  than  to  the  situation  at  the  feast  of 
Tabernacles  several  months  before. 

In  the  present  text  Chapter  viii.  begins  with 
the  story  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery,3  when 
Jesus  enters  into  the  temple  from  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  just  as  He  did  in  Passion  week  daily, 
according  to  the  Synoptists.  It  is  agreed  by  all 
critics  that  this  is  a  late  addition  to  the  Gospel- 
later  indeed  than  the  additions  of  the  third  hand. 
But  the  very  fact,  that  it  was  inserted  here  in 

1  See  p.  67.  2  See  pp.  83  seq.  3  John  viii.  1-11. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    155 

some  early  manuscript,  makes  it  evident  that  a 
gap  in  the  Gospel  was  detected  just  at  this  point. 

The  distinct  reference  to  His  death l  implies 
greater  peril  than  any  yet  experienced,  and  is 
more  suited  to  the  peril  of  the  feast  of  Dedica- 
tion. The  denunciation  of  His  opponents,2  the 
statement  of  His  pre-existence,3  and  the  attempt 
of  the  people  to  stone  Him  for  blasphemy 4  also 
seem  better  suited  to  that  occasion  when  He 
was  doomed,  and  had  no  longer  any  reason  for 
reserve  or  caution.  The  story  of  healing  the  man 
born  blind,  Chapter  ix.,  and  its  consequences,  is 
also  more  suited  to  the  latter  date.  Chapter  x. 
1-21,  the  allegory  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  is  in- 
deed implied  in  x.  26-29,  and  probably  originally 
preceded  it.  The  attempt  at  stoning,  x.  31,  seems 
to  be  the  same  as  that  of  viii.  59.  The  separa- 
tion of  this  material  was  doubtless  due  to  the 
second  author,  as  more  suited  to  his  dogmatic  re- 
flections, and  it  can  hardly  be  ascribed  to  the 
original  Gospel  of  John. 

Chapters  xiii.-xvii.  give  a  connected  series  of 
discourses  of  Jesus  with  His  disciples  on  Passion 
eve.  But  there  is  a  break  at  the  close  of  Chap- 


1  John  viii.  12-29,  *  John  viii.  30-50. 

3  John  viii,  51-58.  *  John  viii.  59. 


156      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

ter  xiv.,  where  Jesus  is  represented  as  saying: 
"  Arise,  let  us  go  hence."  It  is  remarkable  that 
discourses  with  the  disciples  continue  through 
Chapters  xv.,  xvi.,  concluding  with  a  final  prayer 
of  Jesus  for  His  disciples,  Chapter  xvii.  When 
these  discourses  are  examined  critically  it  is  evi- 
dent that  we  have  a  complexity  of  material  not 
altogether  suited  to  the  situation  on  the  eve  of 
the  Passion.  The  dogmatic  intent  of  the  author 
is  evident  in  his  additions  to  the  discussions  of 
Jesus  and  His  disciples. 

Chapter  xvii.  and  a  considerable  amount  of 
material  in  the  previous  chapters  suit  much  bet- 
ter a  post-resurrection  situation  in  connection 
with  the  final  commission  of  the  disciples  ;  and 
the  prayer  is  best  suited  to  the  last  interview 
with  the  disciples  just  prior  to  the  ascension,  as 
reported  in  Luke.1 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  discourses  of 
Jesus  and  the  few  historical  incidents  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  are  arranged  with  a  dogmatic 
purpose  and  in  a  topical  order.  Nothing  can  be 
more  unsafe  than  to  treat  them  as  in  chrono- 
logical order.  The  arrangement  of  modern  har- 
monists and  authors  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  which  is 

'Seep.  121. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN    157 

based  upon  this  theory  of  the  chronological  order 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  is,  therefore,  altogether 
wrong.  It  obstructs  the  way  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  development  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and 
fills  the  whole  story  with  darkness  and  confusion. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  many  moderns  disregard 
the  Fourth  Gospel  altogether  in  their  studies  of 
the  life  of  Jesus. 

If,  however,  we  abandon  this  error,  use  the 
material  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  after  the  example 
of  the  earliest  harmonist,  Tatian,  as  in  topical 
order,  and  then  seek  to  arrange  it  where  it  best 
fits  into  the  narratives  of  the  Synoptists;  or  if 
we  use  all  the  material  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
without  prejudice  as  to  its  chronological  order, 
with  the  other  Gospels  as  common  sources  for 
an  arrangement  of  the  material  as  it  best  suits 
all  the  conditions  of  the  problem,  a  new  light 
breaks  forth  upon  the  whole,  and  the  material 
falls  naturally  into  an  orderly  development  and 
a  harmonious  historical  narrative. 

If  the  results  thus  far  obtained  are  correct,  not 
the  apostle  St.  John,  but  his  pupil  is  responsible 
for  the  structure  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  He 
uses  the  original  Hebrew  Gospel  of  St.  John 
as  his  source,  just  as  the  author  of  the  Gospel 
of  Matthew  uses  the  original  Gospel  of  St. 


158       NEW  LIGHT  ON   THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Matthew  as  his  source ;  but  the  order  of  the  dis- 
courses of  Jesus  in  the  original  Gospel  of  St. 
John  is  even  more  clouded  than  the  order  of  the 
logia  in  the  original  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew. 
Their  historical  order  we  may  determine  partly 
from  incidental  statements  contained  therein; 
but  chiefly  from  the  interrelation  of  their  teach- 
ings and  their  appropriate  fitting  into  the  events 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  after  these  have  taken  their 
place  in  the  narrative. 


XIII 

THE  GOSPEL   OF   THE   INFANCY 

THE  Gospels  of  Mark  and  John  agree  in 
having  no  gospel  of  the  Infancy  of  Jesus. 
This  was  due  doubtless  to  a  lack  of"  interest  in 
that  part  of  the  life  of'  Jesus,  as  well  as  to  the 
fact  that  both  of  these  Gospels  seem  to  be 
limited  to  the  testimony  of  what  the  primary 
authorities  themselves  had  seen  and  heard — St. 
Peter  in  Mark,  and  St.  John  in  the  Gospel  of 
John — that  is,  in  both  Gospels  in  their  original 
forms. 

The  later  editors,  doubtless  owing  to  a  more 
dogmatic  interest,  thinking  of  Jesus  as  the  Son 
of  God  and  divine,  had  still  less  interest  in  the 
infancy  of  Jesus.  The  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  is 
confined  to  a  brief  statement  in  Matthew  i.  18-ii. 
to  which  a  genealogy  of  Jesus  is  prefixed;  and  a 
fuller  statement,  Luke  i.-ii.  to  which  a  genealogy 
is  appended,  iii.  23-38,  the  ministry  of  John 
being  inserted,  iii.  1-22. 

The  fact,  that  in  both  cases  the  gospel  of  the 


160       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

Infancy  is  attached  to  genealogies  shows  an  in- 
terest in  proving  that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of 
David,  the  heir  of  the  promises  to  David  and 
his  seed,  and  so  the  Messiah.  The  fact  that 
Luke's  genealogy  goes  back  to  Adam  shows  a 
human  interest,  and  a  universalism  characteristic 
of  the  Roman  disciple  of  St.  Paul.  The  stories  of 
the  Infancy,  told  by  Matthew,  were  all  to  show 
that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  of  Prophecy:1  (1) 
The  annunciation  to  Joseph  and  birth  of  Jesus, 
as  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah 
respecting  Emmanuel  ; 2  (2)  The  adoration  of 
the  Magi,  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  of 
Micah  that  the  Messiah  would  be  born  in 
Bethlehem  ; 3  (3)  The  blood-bath  of  Bethlehem 
and  flight  into  Egypt,  as  fulfilling  the  prophecy 
of  Jeremiah,  of  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  ; 
and  the  prediction  of  Hosea  that — "out  of 
Egypt  did  I  call  my  son  ;"4  (4)  The  return  to 
Nazareth,  as  fulfilling  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah6 
that  He  should  be  called  a  Nazarene. 

It  is  evident  that  none  of  this  was  found  in 
the  original  Gospels  of  Matthew  or  Mark.   These 

1  Messiah  of  the  Gospels,  pp.  318  seq. 

2  Matt.  i.  18-25  ;  Is.  vii.  14.  *  Matt.  ii.  1-12  ;  Mic.v.2. 

4  Matt.  ii.  13-18  ;  Jer.  xxxi.  15  ;  Hos.  xi.  1. 

5  Matt.  ii.  19-23  ;  Is.  xi.  1. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  INFANCY  161 

are  all  additions  inserted  by  the  author  of  the 
canonical  Matthew.  This  conception  of  the  ful- 
filment of  Old  Testament  prophecy  by  these 
events  as  stated  by  this  author,  is  doubtless  a 
crude  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  Script- 
ure.1 We  may,  however,  find  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  parallels  in  the  Rabbinical  methods  of  the 
time.  We  are  to  explain  them,  therefore,  not  in 
accordance  with  modern  principles  of  interpreta- 
tion, but  in  accordance  with  those  principles 
which  were  in  use  in  the  times  of  Jesus.2 

L)id  these  stories  come  from  an  oral  source  or 
from  a  written  source  ?  Matt.  i.  20-21  gives  a 
little  piece  of  poetry.  This  is  not  complete  in 
itself.  It  was  taken  from  a  longer  poem.  Its 
contents  show  that  the  longer  poem  contained  a 
fuller  account  of  the  story  of  the  annunciation  to 
Joseph.  We  may  therefore  say  that  the  story 
of  the  annunciation  to  Joseph  and  the  birth  of 
Jesus  was  taken  from  this  poem  and  given  by 
the  author  of  our  Matthew  in  prose  with  the  ex- 
ception of  this  extract.  This  piece  has  the  par- 
allelisms and  measures  of  Hebrew  poetry.  We 
may  therefore  conclude  that  there  was  a  poem  in 


1  Messianic  Prophecy,  pp.  63  seq. 

2  General  Introduction,  pp.  436  seq. 


162       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  Hebrew  language,  which  has  been  translated 
for  the  present  Gospel.  The  other  stories  do  not 
contain  such  poetic  extracts,  and  therefore  we 
cannot  use  the  same  argument  for  a  written 
source.  But  they  are  Hebraistic  in  style.  It  is 
possible  that  these  also  were  in  the  same  poem ; 
but  we  have  no  evidence  of  it,  in  their  composi- 
tion or  their  context.  They  may  therefore  have 
come  from  an  oral  source.  The  use  that  is  made 
of  them  in  the  canonical  Matthew,  to  show  that 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah  of  Prophecy,  we  may 
safely  say,  was  not  in  the  source,  whether  oral  or 
written,  but  was  due  to  the  author  of  the  Gospel 
himself. 

The  fullest  report  of  the  story  of  the  Infancy 
of  Jesus  is  given  in  Luke.  This  story  is  com- 
posed of  a  number  of  pieces  of  poetry.  The 
prose  narrative  gathers  about  these  ;  and  is 
chiefly  of'the  nature  of  seams  to  build  the  poetry 
together  into  a  harmonious  story.  These  poems 
are:  (1)  The  Annunciation  to  Zacharias,1  a  tri- 
meter poem  in  the  original  Hebrew  in  two 
strophes  of  different  lengths  evidently  incomplete 
in  the  translation.  (2)  The  Annunciation  to 
Mary,2  four  pieces  of  trimeter  poetry  of  different 


1  Luke  i.  13-17.  2  Luke  i.  28,  30-33,  35-37,  38. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  INFANCY  163 

lengths  connected  by  seams,  evidently  incom- 
plete in  their  present  form.  (3)  The  Annuncia- 
tion to  the  Shepherds,1  two  pieces  of  trimeter 
poetry  evidently  extracts  from  a  larger  piece. 
(4)  The  Song  of  Elizabeth,2  and  (5)  the  Song  of 
of  the  Virgin,  the  Magnificat  of  the  Church,3 
both  trimeter  poems,  more  complete  than  the 
others,  but  probably  also  incomplete.  (6)  The 
Song  of  Zacharias,  the  Benedictus  of  the  Church.4 
This  seems  to  be  of  the  pentameter  movement. 
It  is  uncertain  whether  we  should  divide  it  into 
five  or  into  two  strophes.  It  is  the  most  com- 
plete of  the  poems,  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  whole  of  it  has  been  preserved.  (7)  The 
Song  of  Simeon6  is  a  trimeter  poem,  which  is  cer- 
tainly incomplete  in  the  parts  of  two  strophes 
that  have  been  preserved.  This  is  the  Nunc 
Dimittis  of  the  Church. 

These  seven  pieces  of  poetry  are  a  series  of 
annunciations  and  of  songs  of  gratitude  and 
praise,  all  with  marked  characteristics  of  Hebrew 
poetry,  not  only  in  form  but  in  the  style  and 
substance  of  the  thought.  They  are  not  com- 
plete in  themselves,  but  extracts  from  poems. 

1  Luke  ii.  10-12,  14.  2  Luke  i.  42-45. 

3  Luke  i.  46-55.  *  Luke  i.  68-79. 

6  Luke  ii.  29-32,  34-35. 


164       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

This  raises  the  question  whether  they  were  not 
originally  parts  of  larger  poems,  rather  than  each 
from  different  and  independent  poems.  Six  of 
them  have  the  same  trimeter  movement,  and 
may  be  all  from  the  same  poem.  One  of  them 
is  a  pentameter,  like  the  pentameter  preserved 
in  Matthew,1  and  therefore  both  of  these  may  be 
from  the  same  poem.  May  we,  therefore,  think 
of  two  long  poems,  each  giving  a  poetic  account 
of  the  birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus  ?  Or  are  we  to 
think  of  a  number  of  little  poems  each  taking  up 
a  different  theme  ?  It  seems  more  probable  that 
we  have  to  think  of  two  original  poems  of  this 
kind,  the  one  chiefly  used  by  Matthew,  the  other 
chiefly  used  by  Luke.  At  all  events,  so  far  as 
Luke  is  concerned,  his  story  of  the  Infancy  is 
nothing  more  than  a  prose  setting  for  these 
seven  poetic  pieces  given  by  him.  These  poems 
were  certainly  originally  in  Hebrew  ;  they  were 
also  certainly  before  him  in  written  documents, 
one  or  more.  They  were  written  sources  as 
truly  as  the  original  Mark,  and  the  original  Mat- 
thew,— all  alike  in  the  Hebrew  language.  They 
must  have  been  composed  before  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  either  in  the  Christian  congrega- 


1  Matt.  i.  20-21. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  INFANCY  165 

tion  of  Jerusalem,  or  the  Christian  community  in 
Galilee ;  therefore  by  early  Christian  poets  who 
had  access  to  the  family  of  Jesus,  certainly  to  His 
brother  James  the  head  of  the  Jerusalem  Church, 
and  possibly  also  to  the  Virgin  Mother  of  our 
Lord ;  and  to  others  who  could  speak  as  eye- 
witnesses or  ear- witnesses  of  these  matters  em- 
bodied in  verse.  Making  every  allowance  for  the 
poetic  form,  style,  and  conception,  these  poems 
are  sources  of  the  highest  value,  and  of  the  first 
degree  of  historic  importance,  as  belonging  with 
the  original  Hebrew  Gospels  of  Mark,  Mat- 
thew, and  John,  rather  than  with  the  later  Gos- 
pels of  Matthew,  Luke,  and  John,  as  we  now 
have  them. 

They  give  us  information  as  to  the  Infancy  of 
Jesus,  and  as  to  the  Virgin  Mother,  which  is 
necessary  to  complete  the  story  of  their  lives  and 
to  give  us  a  complete  understanding  of  their 
character.  Indeed  this  gospel  of  the  Infancy 
as  enshrined  not  only  in  the  first  and  third  Gos- 
pels, but  also  in  the  Canticles  of  the  Church  de- 
rived from  them,  has  had  more  influence  upon 
Christian  worship,  and  no  less  influence  upon 
Christian  doctrine,  than  the  more  dogmatic 
statements  of  the  Epistles.  There  is  no  sound 
reason  to  reject  it  as  merely  legendary,  in  its 


166       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

material.  There  is  every  reason  to  accept  it  as 
giving  a  valid  and  essentially  historic  account 
of  the  Infancy  of  our  Lord,  so  far  as  it  could 
be  reasonably  expected  in  poetic  forms. 


XIV 

OUTLINE   OF   THE   LIFE   OF   JESUS 

THE    solution   given   of  the   several  prob- 
lems   considered   in   the   previous   chap- 
ters enables  us  to  arrange  the  material  given  in 
the  four  Gospels  respecting  the  life  of  Jesus  in 
the  following  outline. 

I.   The  birth  and  early  life  of  Jesus. 

The  Gospels  of  Mark  and  John  agree  in  giv- 
ing only  incidental  references  to  the  early  life  of 
Jesus.  Mark  simply  tells  us  that  Jesus  was  a 
carpenter,  the  Son  of  Mary,  and  that  He  had 
brothers  and  sisters.  He  was  of  the  royal  line 
of  David  and  heir  to  the  Messianic  promise.1 
John  tells  us  that  He  was  a  Son  of  Joseph,  hav- 
ing mother  and  brethren.2  These  Gospels  defi- 
nitely set  forth  the  divinity  of  Christ  and  have 
no  interest  in  His  human  development.  In  this 
they  agree  with  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  which 
represent  that  Jesus  was  born  of  a  woman,  of 

1  Mark  iii.  31,  vi.  3,  x.  47. 

2  John  i.  45,  ii.  1-12,  vi.  42,  vii.  3-10,  xix.  25-27. 


168       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

the  seed  of  David  and  Abraham,  an  Israelite 
according  to  the  flesh,  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh ;  under  the  Jewish  Law,  and  that  He  had 
brothers.1  But  St.  Paul  clearly  teaches  the  pre- 
existence  of  Christ,  and  that  His  entrance  into 
the  world  was  from  a  pre- existent  and  divine 
state.2 

Almost  all  that  we  know  of  the  early  life 
of  Jesus  is  derived  from  Matthew  and  Luke. 
According  to  these  Gospels,  the  angel  Gabriel 
appeared  to  the  Virgin  Mary  betrothed  to  Jo- 
seph of  the  royal  line  of  David,  and  announced 
that  she  had  been  chosen  of  God  to  conceive 
and  bear  the  Messiah,  and  that  He  was  to  be 
named  Jesus.  Mary  was  overshadowed  by  a 
theophanic  cloud  and  conceived  Jesus  by  the 
energy  of  the  divine  Spirit.3  Joseph,  instructed 
by  an  angel,  marries  Mary  after  her  conception 
of  Jesus  and  brings  up  Jesus  as  his  son  and 
heir.4  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem,  the  birth- 
place of  David,  a  year  or  two  before  the  death 
of  Herod  the  Great.  Joseph  went  up  with  his 
wife  to  Bethlehem,  from  their  home  in  Nazareth, 


1  Gal.  i.  19,  iii.  16,  iv.  4,  5;  1  Cor.  ix.  5;  Rom.  i.  3,  viii.  1-4, 
ix.  5;  2  Tim.  ii.  8. 

8   The  Incarnation  of  the  Lord,  pp.  83  seq. 

8  Luke  i.  26-38.  *  Matt.  i.  18-25. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  169 

because  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be  regis- 
tered in  his  ancestral  home  according  to  the  de- 
cree of  Augustus.  The  city  being  overcrowded 
he  was  compelled  to  lodge  in  a  stable ;  so  that 
when  Jesus  was  born,  He  was  cradled  in  a 
manger.  His  birth  was  accompanied  by  a 
theophany  to  the  shepherds  of  Bethlehem,  an- 
nouncing the  birth  of  the  Messiah,  and  leading 
them  to  the  cradle  of  the  infant  Jesus.1  Jesus 
was  circumcised  and  named  on  the  eighth  day 
after  birth,  and  was  presented  to  God  in  the 
temple  as  the  first-born  son  on  the  fortieth  day 
after  birth,  with  sacrifices  which  imply  the 
limited  resources  of  His  parents  at  the  time. 
The  presentation  was  accompanied  with  a  recog- 
nition of  His  Messiahship  by  Simeon  and  Anna.2 
Wise  men  from  the  East  were  guided  by  a 
theophany  in  the  form  of  a  star  to  Bethlehem, 
whither  they  came  to  worship  Jesus  as  the  new- 
born Messianic  king.  The  jealousy  of  Herod 
the  king  was  excited,  and,  warned  by  God, 
Joseph  and  Mary  escaped  from  the  blood-bath 
of  Bethlehem,  in  which  Herod  hoped  he  had 
slain  the  infant  Jesus  in  the  midst  of  the 
others.  They  fled  to  Egypt,  where  they  re- 


1  Luke  ii.  1-20.  *  Luke  ii.  21-38. 


170       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

mained  until  the  death  of  Herod.  Then  they 
returned  to  Palestine  ;  but  not  to  Bethlehem, 
for  fear  of  Archelaus,  Herod's  son;  but  to  their 
former  home  in  Nazareth.1  And  now  a  veil  is 
drawn  over  the  life  of  Jesus,  until  He  was  twelve 
years  of  age  when,  in  accordance  with  the  Law, 
He  made  His  first  Passover  in  Jerusalem.  He 
had  grown  in  strength,  wisdom  and  grace.  And 
He  was  so  intent  upon  learning  from  the  wise 
men  of  Jerusalem  that  He  was  left  behind  by 
His  parents  when  they  started  on  their  return 
to  Nazareth.  When  they  missed  Him  they 
returned  to  Jerusalem  and  found  Him  in  the 
temple  with  the  rabbis,  hearing  them  and  ask- 
ing them  questions.  His  words  to  His  parents 
on  that  occasion  make  it  evident  that  He  was 
conscious  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God  in  a 
special  sense  and  that  He  was  called  to  do  His 
Father's  business.2  But  He  was  also  conscious 
that  His  time  had  not  yet  come,  and  so  He 
returned  with  His  parents  and  remained  subject 
to  them  until  He  had  reached  full  maturity.3 
Indeed  He  did  not  begin  His  ministry  until  He 
was  about  thirty  years  of  age.  Thus,  about 

1  Matt.  ii.  22-23. 

2  The  Incarnation  of  the  Lord,  pp.  42-44. 

3  Lukeii.  40-52. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS          171 

eighteen  years  He  remained  in  obscurity  in 
Nazareth,  conscious  all  the  time  of  His  divine 
mission,  and  yet  waiting  patiently  for  the  time 
when  He  should  begin  it.  During  this  period 
He  was,  as  the  carpenter's  son,  Himself  a  car- 
penter, engaged  in  daily  labor  with  His  hands.1 
In  this  respect,  however,  He  was  doing  what  the 
most  distinguished  rabbis  of  the  time  had  done  ; 
for  it  was  an  established  principle  that  each 
should  learn  some  trade  or  handiwork,  and  the 
highest  studies  were  not  incompatible  with  daily 
labor.  So  St.  Paul  was  a  tent-maker,  although 
certainly  trained  to  the  highest  degree  in  the 
learning  of  his  times.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  boy  who,  at  twelve,  appeared  in  the 
temple,  so  inquiring,  so  self-contained,  and  so 
assured  of  His  mission,  spent  these  eighteen 
years  in  the  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  in 
all  other  learning  that  was  accessible  to  Him. 
His  wisdom  as  manifested  in  His  sentences  is 
more  precious  in  form  as  well  as  in  substance, 
than  all  the  wisdom  of  Israel.  His  skill  in 
argument  as  showq^^tll  His  discussions  with 
the  Pharisees  ;  Hisrfl^Mwerful  parables  excelling 
all  the  Haggadistic  teaching  of  the  greatest  rab- 


1  Matt.  xiii.  55  ;  Mark  vi.  3. 


172       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

bis  of  Israel,  make  it  evident  that  Jesus  had 
made  Himself  master  of  all  that  the  rabbis  of 
His  time  had  to  teach  Him  and  that  He  easily 
surpassed  them  all. 

During  this  period  Joseph  had  probably  died. 
He  was  evidently  somewhat  advanced  in  life 
when  he  married  Mary.  He  had  at  that  time 
children,  sons  and  daughters,  from  an  earlier 
marriage.  There  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt 
the  earliest  traditions  that  Mary  retained  her 
perpetual  virginity,  that  Jesus  was  her  only 
Son,  and  that  Joseph  respected  her  as  the  conse- 
crated Mother  of  the  Messiah. 

II.  Introductory  Ministry. 

Jesus  began  His  ministry  when  He  was  about 
thirty  years  of  age.1  He  was  prepared  for  it  by 
His  forerunner,  John  the  Baptist,  who  was  a 
near  relative  of  Jesus  on  the  mother's  side,  a 
priest  by  descent,  consecrated  from  birth  to  be  a 
prophet  like  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  before  him. 
He  preached  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  partly 
in  Judeea  and  partly  in  Pereea,  declaring  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand,  that  the 
advent  of  God  and  the  Messiah  was  near.  He 


Lukeiii.  23 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS          173 

called  to  repentance  and  sealed  the  repentance 
with  the  anointing  of  Baptism.1 

Jesus,  probably  after  His  return  from  the 
feast  of  Tabernacles,  goes  to  the  Baptist  to  re- 
ceive Baptism.  The  theophany  of  the  heavenly 
Voice  and  the  Dove  convinced  the  Baptist  that 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah  :  and  gave  Jesus  Himself 
the  consecration  to  His  ministry.2  Under  the 
power  of  the  divine  Spirit,  and  in  the  ecstatic 
state,  He  remained  forty  days  in  the  wilderness 
of  Judasa,  absorbed  in  prayer  and  meditation. 
At  the  close  of  this  time  He  undergoes  tempta- 
tions, all  directed  to  the  one  point  of  forcing  the 
issue  by  a  premature  assertion  of  His  Messiah- 
ship  in  accordance  with  the  expectations  of  His 
times.  Jesus  overcomes  these  temptations  and 
enters  upon  His  ministry  with  the  same  self- 
poised,  patient  and  determined  purpose  that  He 
manifested  eighteen  years  before.  He  will  be 
guided  by  the  divine  Spirit  upon  Him  in  all  His 
work.  He  will  not  make  His  mission  of  none 
effect  by  precipitancy  and  unwisdom. 

Immediately  after  the  temptation  Jesus  re- 
turns to  the  Jordan,  where  He  is  recognized  by 
the  Baptist  as  the  Messiah.  Two  of  the  disci- 


1  Luke  iii.  1-18.  2  Matt.  iii.  13-iv.  11  ;  John  i.  32-34. 


174       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

pies  of  the  Baptist,  Andrew,  and  probably  John, 
are  transferred  to  Jesus.1  On  the  next  day 
Philip  is  called  to  follow  Him.2  With  these 
disciples  He  goes  to  Cana  of  Galilee  where  He 
works  His  first  miracle.3  The  disciples  return 
for  a  short  time  to  their  homes,  and  Jesus  doubt- 
less also,  to  His  own  home  at  Nazareth.  But 
in  a  few  days  He  goes  to  the  shore  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee  and  summons  the  four  fishermen  to 
abandon  all  and  follow  Him.4 

A  Sabbath  of  teaching  and  miracles  in  Ca- 
pernaum soon  follows.5 

Jesus  retires  to  a  desert  place  to  pray,6  and  then 
makes  His  first  tour  in  Galilee  preaching  in  the 
synagogues  and  working  miracles.7 

In  Capernaum,  He  heals  a  paralytic.8  Soon 
after  He  calls  Matthew,  the  publican,  to  be  His 
disciple.9  After  a  farewell  supper,  at  the  house 
of  Matthew,  Jesus  leaves  Galilee  and  rejoins  the 
Baptist  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  the  two 
preach  and  baptize  side  by  side  for  a  short  time. 
Differences,  however,  soon  emerge  between  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  and  the  disciples  of  the  Bap- 

1  John  i.  29-42.  2  John  i.  43.  s  John  ii.  1-11. 

4  Mark  i.  16-20.  6  Mark  i.  21-34.     6  Mark  i.  35. 

7  Mark  i.  35-45.  8  Mark  ii.  1-12. 

9  Mark  ii.  13-17  ;  Matt.  ix.  9-13. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  175 

tist,  and  the  Pharisees  take  advantage  of  the 
situation  to  excite  disputes  as  to  purification 
and  fasting  and  possibly  other  matters.  But 
the  Baptist  recognizes  that  Jesus  is  his  superior. 
Jesus  must  increase  while  he  decreases.  His 
preparatory  work  is  wellnigh  done.  The  One 
for  whom  he  prepared  is  now  at  work.1  Jesus 
is  now  more  successful  in  winning  disciples  than 
the  Baptist. 

The  attention  of  the  Pharisees  is  called  to 
Jesus  and  their  jealousy  is  excited.  Accordingly 
after  attending  the  feast  of  Passover  Jesus  pru- 
dently returns  to  Galilee.  If  we  allow  two 
months  for  the  time  from  Tabernacles  to  the 
first  departure  of  Jesus  to  Galilee  after  leaving 
John,  we  may  allow  two  months  for  the  intro- 
ductory Galilean  ministry,  and  one  month  for 
His  work  with  the  Baptist  in  the  valley  of  the 
Jordan  before  Passover. 

III.    The  Galilean  Ministry. 

Jesus  now  begins  in  earnest.  Thus  far  He 
has  worked  more  under  the  shadow  of  the  Bap- 
tist. The  centre  of  the  ministry  has  been  where 
John  was  baptizing  in  the  Jordan.  Very  soon 


1  John  iii.  22-30  ;  Mark  ii.  18-22. 


176       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

after  Jesus'  return  to  Galilee,  the  Baptist  was 
arrested  and  imprisoned,  and  his  work  brought 
suddenly  to  an  end.  Jesus  therefore  becomes 
the  chief,  and  we  may  say  the  only,  prophet  to 
whom  all  eyes  were  now  directed.  His  minis- 
try in  Galilee  up  to  this  time  had  been  only 
preparatory,  teaching  in  the  synagogues  and 
working  cures.  Now  He  proclaims  with  more 
vigor  than  the  Baptist  the  advent  of  the  king- 
dom and  the  call  to  repentance. 

1.  The  first  incident  of  this  second  period  of 
Galilean  ministry  is  the  plucking  of  grain  from 
the  standing  crops,  by  His  disciples  immediately 
after  Passover  on  the  sabbath.  The  Pharisees 
charge  Him  with  violating  the  sabbath.  The 
first  of  the  sabbath  conflicts  begins  and  the  bat- 
tle with  the  Pharisees  is  now  on,  which  is  one  of 
the  most  marked  features  of  Jesus'  life.  Soon 
after  He  teaches  the  multitudes  by  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  and  uses  a  boat  to  take  Him  from  place 
to  place.1  He  has,  in  the  meantime,  called 
many  other  disciples  than  those  six  whose  calls 
have  been  mentioned  thus  far,  and  from  these 
He  selects  a  group  of  Twelve,  and  gives  them  a 
discourse  of  Consecration  which  is  known  as  the 


1  Mark  iii.  7  seq. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  177 

Sermon  on  the  Mount.1  Soon  after  He  heals 
the  centurion's  servant.2  This  is  only  a  varia- 
tion of  the  nobleman's  son.3  He  also  raises  the 
widow's  son  from  the  dead.4  These  are  doubt- 
less only  specimens  of  many  miracles  and  a 
great  abundance  of  teaching  during  the  fifty 
days  from  Passover  to  Pentecost.  At  the  close 
of  this  period  messengers  came  from  the  Bap- 
tist, who,  shut  up  in  prison  and  hearing  of  the 
works  of  Jesus,  was  somewhat  perplexed.  He 
had  no  doubt  of  Jesus'  Messiahship.  But  the 
Messianic  ideals  of  the  Old  Testament  are  so 
complex,  the  relation  of  the  divine  Advent  to 
the  several  different  conceptions  of  the  Messiah 
is  so  obscure,  that  it  was  quite  natural  that  the 
Baptist  should  raise  the  question  whether  Jesus 
was  in  all  respects  the  one  he  had  heralded,  and 
whether  Jesus  was  not  perhaps  one  of  several 
Messiahs,  and  another,  not  yet  come,  was  to 
fulfil  the  other  ideals.5  Jesus  calls  the  attention 
of  the  Baptist  to  His  works  of  preaching  and 
His  miracles,  evidently  pointing  him  to  the  Mes- 
sianic prophet  of  the  Second  Isaiah.6  We  must 


1  Mark  iii.  13-19  ;  Matt,  v.-vii.;  Luke  vi.  20-49. 

2  Luke  vii.  1-10.          3  John  iv.  46-54.          *  Luke  vii.  11-17. 
6  See  The  Incarnation  of  the  Lord,  pp.  167  seq. 

6  Luke  vii.  18-35  ;  Matt  xi.  2-19. 


178       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

probably  put  at  the  close  of  this  period  the  sab- 
bath healing  of  the  man  with  a  withered  hand,1 
which  provoked  the  ire  of  the  Pharisees  so  that 
they  conspired  with  the  Herodians  to  destroy  Him. 

Jesus  now  goes  to  the  feast  of  Pentecost, 
and  while  in  Jerusalem  heals  the  infirm  man  on 
the  sabbath,  and  the  battle  with  the  Pharisees 
begins  in  Jerusalem.2 

2.  From  the  feast  of  Pentecost  Jesus  returns 
for  His  third  Galilean  ministry.  He  partakes  of 
the  hospitality  of  a  Pharisee  and  accepts  the 
loving  homage  of  a  Magdalene  whom  He  ab- 
solves from  all  her  sins.3  This  is  probably  Mary 
Magdalene,  who,  with  other  women,  accompany 
Him  and  minister  to  Him  on  His  third  tour  of 
Galilee,  mentioned  by  Luke  at  the  beginning  of 
his  narrative,4  but  by  Mark  at  its  close.5 

This  period  embraces  the  four  months  from 
Pentecost  to  Tabernacles.  The  incidents  men- 
tioned besides  these  above  are  :  the  discourse 
representing  that  His  disciples  were  His  real 
brethren,  rather  than  His  kindred  ; b  the  giving 
of  the  parables  of  the  kingdom  at  the  seaside ; T 


1  Mark  iii.  1-6.  2  John  v. 

s  Luke  vii.  36-50.  4  Luke  viii.  1-3. 

5  Mark  vi.  6  ;  Matt.  ix.  35.  6  Mark  iii.  31-35. 

7  Mark  iv.  1-34. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  179 

the  crossing  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  stilling  of 
the  tempest ; 1  the  visit  to  Decapolis  and  healing 
of  the  Gerasene  demoniac  ; 2  the  raising  from 
the  dead  of  Jairus'  daughter,  and  the  healing 
of  the  woman  with  an  issue.3  These  are  again 
only  a  few  of  many  incidents  in  a  ministry  of 
four  months.  For  the  events  actually  mentioned 
would  have  taken  only  a  few  days. 

Near  the  close  of  this  period,  Jesus  learns  that 
the  Baptist  has  been  put  to  death,  and  that 
Herod  is  alarmed  for  fear  that  He  is  John  the 
Baptist  risen  from  the  dead.  This  makes  it 
extremely  perilous  for  Jesus  to  continue  His 
public  ministry  in  Galilee.  Accordingly,  having 
trained  the  Twelve  sufficiently,  He  sends  them 
forth  in  pairs  in  a  mission  throughout  Galilee  to 
carry  on  His  work.4  It  is  altogether  probable, 
however,  that  Jesus  always  kept  one  of  these 
pairs  with  Him,  changing  them,  however,  from 
time  to  time. 

IV.  Ministry  in  Judcea  and  Percea. 

During  the  absence  of  the  Twelve  Jesus  goes 
away  from  Galilee  to  carry  on  His  ministry  in 
Judasa  and  in  Pereea. 


1  Mark  iv.  35-41.  2  Mark  v.  1-20.  3  Mark  v.  21-43, 

4  Mark  vi,  7-13 ;  Matt.  ix.  36  seq.;  Luke  ix.  1-6, 


180       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

1.  He  journeys  through  Samaria  to  Jeru- 
salem secretly  in  order  to  avoid  arrest  from 
Herod,1  and  arrives  late  at  the  feast  of  Taber- 
nacles. James  and  John  are  with  Him  on  this 
journey  and  doubtless  remain  with  Him  during 
all  His  ministry  in  Jerusalem.  At  this  feast  of 
Tabernacles,  Jesus  wrought  no  miracle,  but 
taught  in  the  temple  and  had  some  discussions 
with  the  Pharisees.2  The  Sanhedrim  sent  officers 
to  arrest  Him  but  they  were  unable  to  do  it.3  It 
is  probable  that  it  was  at  this  time  that  the  in- 
terview of  Jesus  with  Nicodemus  took  place.4 
At  all  events  Nicodemus  at  this  time  defends 
Him  before  the  Sanhedrim.5  At  this  visit  to 
Jerusalem  He  also  visited  Martha  and  Mary.6 
Jesus  evidently  avoided  bringing  on  a  crisis  at 
this  feast,  for  he  had  determined  upon  a  ministry 
in  Perasa  which  now  begins  immediately  after 
Tabernacles. 

2.  Prior  to  the  going  to  Persea  Himself,  He 
selects  and  commissions  seventy  disciples  to  go 
before  Him  on  a  mission  thither  just  as  He  had 
sent  the  Twelve  on  a  mission  in  Galilee.  The 
Gospels  give  us  a  number  of  sayings  of  Jesus 

1  Luke  ix.  51-56;  John  vii.  2-10.         2  John  vii.  11-43. 
3  John  vii.  44-4.9.  4  John  iii.  1-15. 

5  John  vii.  50-52.  6  Luke  x.  38-42. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS          181 

with  reference  to  the  special  call  to  disciples, 
attached  to  the  incident  of  the  scribe  who  desired 
to  follow  Him.1  Doubtless  Matthew  is  correct 
in  putting  them  during  the  previous  Galilean 
ministry.  They  are  given  here  by  Luke  as  in- 
troductory to  the  Mission  of  the  Seventy. 

It  is  probable  that  Jesus  left  James  and 
John  behind  Him  in  Jerusalem  to  continue  His 
mission  there;  for  they  were  well  acquainted 
there  even  with  the  family  of  the  high-priest.2 
It  is  also  probable  that  Matthew  and  Thomas 
joined  Him  for  the  Pereean  ministry.3  The  first 
Persean  ministry  was  for  about  two  months,  from 
Tabernacles  to  Dedication.  The  incidents  men- 
tioned by  Luke  as  belonging  to  this  period  are 
few.  The  question  of  the  lawyer  as  to  the  way 
of  life,  with  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan 
probably  belongs  here.4  Jesus  teaches  His  dis- 
ciples the  Lord's  prayer.5  He  casts  out  the 
dumb  demon.6  He  breakfasts  with  a  Pharisee.7 
This  is  followed  by  a  discussion  with  the  Phari- 
sees. Jesus  rebukes  a  man  for  coveting  a  share 
in  the  estate  of  his  brother.8  He  warns  to 


1  Luke  ix.  57-62;  Matt.  viii.  19-22.  2  John  xviii.  15. 

3  See  pp.  76  seq.        4  Luke  x.  25-37.  5  Luke  xi.  1  seq. 

8  Luke  xi.  14-29;  cf.  Matt.  xii.  22  seq. 

7  Luke  xi.  37  seq.  8  Luke  xii.  13-15. 


182       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

repent  with  reference  to  the  slaying  of  the 
Galileans  by  Pilate  and  the  fall  of  the  tower  in 
Siloam.1  He  heals  a  woman  with  an  infirmity 
in  the  synagogue  on  the  sabbath,  and  again  has 
to  meet  the  opposition  of  the  Pharisees.2  These 
events,  with  the  most  of  the  logia  and  parables 
attached,  probably  belong  to  this  period  of  the 
Perasan  ministry. 

3.  Jesus  now  goes  up  to  the  feast  of  Dedica- 
tion in  Jerusalem.3  Why  He  went  up  to  this 
feast,  which  was  not  one  of  obligation,  we  are 
not  told;  unless  the  warning  of  the  Pharisees 
against  Herod  belongs  here.4  In  this  case  it  was 
for  prudential  reasons.  He  was  now  between 
Scylla  and  Charybdis,  and  the  crisis  could  not 
long  be  postponed.  Fully  aware  of  this,  Jesus 
had  no  longer  any  reason  for  reserve,  and  at 
this  feast  in  Jerusalem  He  speaks  fully  and 
strongly  of  His  Messiahship  and  His  pre-exist- 
ence. 

The  story  of  John  5  tells  us  that  the  people 
were  about  to  stone  Him  for  blasphemy,  if  He 
had  not  escaped  from  their  hands.  It  also  seems 
necessary  to  bring  in  here,  John  viii.  31-x.  21,  giv- 

1  Luke  xiii.  1-9.  *  Luke  xiii.  10-17. 

3  John  x.  22-39.  *  Luke  xiii.  31-33. 

5  John  x.  22-39. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS          183 

ing  the  assertion  of  His  pre-existence  before 
Abraham,  the  healing  of  the  blind  man  on  the 
Sabbath,  and  the  claiming  his  allegiance  to  Him- 
self as  Messiah  ;  and  also  the  allegory  of  the 
Good  Shepherd. 

His  impending  death  is  clearly  in  His  mind, 
and  He  does  not  hesitate  to  intimate  it  in  His 
discourses  and  discussions.  From  now  on  He 
claims  the  recognition  of  His  Messiahship. 

4.  Jesus  returns  for  a  brief  ministry  in  Persea. 
During  this  period  He  takes  a  sabbath  meal 
with  a  Pharisee  and  heals  a  man  with  the 
dropsy.1  He  gives  a  series  of  logia  to  His  dis- 
ciples as  to  their  counting  the  cost  of  disciple- 
ship,2  and  the  three  parables  of  receiving  the 
lost  in  defence  of  His  own  associating  with 
publicans  and  sinners.3  Then  follow  parables  of 
the  shrewd  steward,  and  Dives  and  Lazarus, 
and  other  logia  and  parables.4  Thus  the  material 
belonging  to  this  time  is,  with  a  single  excep- 
tion, altogether  teaching.  Doubtless  some  of 
this  is  out  of  place,  given  here  for  topical  rea- 
sons. But  it  is  also  probable  that  Jesus  avoided 
publicity,  and  that  therefore  He  would  not  work 


1  Luke  xiv.  1  seq.          *  Luke  xiv.  25-35.          *  Luke  xv. 
*  Luke  xvi.-xvii.  10. 


184       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

miracles.  He  gave  His  teaching  quietly  and  to 
a  great  extent  in  private.  The  Seventy  were  all 
this  time  engaged  in  their  missions. 

5.  The  Pereean  ministry  is  brought  to  an 
abrupt  close  by  the  summons  to  Jerusalem  on 
the  death  of  Lazarus.  Jesus  goes,  although  as 
He  and  His  disciples  clearly  see,  at  great  risks. 
He  raises  Lazarus  from  the  dead.  But  this  only 
attracts  the  greater  attention  to  Him,  and  the 
Sanhedrim  determine  to  put  Him  to  death.1 
Accordingly  He  retires  to  Ephraim  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Samaria.2  After  a  brief  sojourn  there  He 
goes  northward  through  Samaria  to  Galilee,3  re- 
ceiving the  recognition  of  the  Samaritan  woman 
and  her  friends  that  He  was  the  Messiah. 

V.   The  crisis  in  Galilee. 

It  is  probable  that  Jesus'  assertion  of  His  Mes- 
siahship  in  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth  and  His 
rejection  by  His  early  associates  were  immedi- 
ately on  His  arrival  in  Galilee.4  He  was  probably 
now  joined  by  Andrew  and  Peter,  who  accom- 
pany Him  in  His  rapid  and  secret  journey  north- 
ward to  Phoenicia,5  and  then  along  the  frontier 


1  John  xi.  i-53.  2  John  xi.  54.  3  John  iv.  4-43, 

4  Matt.  xiii.  54-58  ;  Mark  vi.  1-6  ;   Luke  iv.  16-30. 
s  Markvii.  24-30. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  185 

to  Decapolis,  at  the  northeast  end  of  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  where  He  heals  a  deaf  mute.1 

Here  at  Bethsaida,  probably,  according  to  ap- 
pointment, the  Twelve  all  join  Him.  He  is 
resorted  to  by  multitudes,  in  the  wilderness,  and 
when  they  suffer  from  hunger  He  works  the 
miracle  of  feeding  them.  After  this  the  disciples 
cross  the  stormy  sea,  and  are  diverted  from  their 
course,  so  that  they  land  in  the  plain  of  Genne- 
saret,  and  make  their  way  to  Capernaum.  Jesus 
has  joined  them.  He  now  delivers  His  last  dis- 
course in  the  Synagogue  of  Capernaum.2  This 
is  connected  with  discussions  with  the  Pharisees 
as  to  His  giving  them  a  sign  of  His  Messiahship, 
and  also  a  dispute  as  to  purification.3 

Jesus  and  His  disciples  now  go  to  Bethsaida, 
where  a  blind  man  is  healed.4  Then  a  rapid 
journey  northward  to  Ceesarea  Philippi  is  made. 
Here  Peter,  as  the  spokesman  of  the  Twelve, 
recognizes  Jesus  as  the  Messiah.5  Jesus  now 
tells  them  that  He  is  the  suffering  Messiah,  and 
that  He  is  about  to  die  in  Jerusalem  and  rise 


1  Mark  vii.  31-37. 

*  Mark  vi.  30  seq.,  viii.  1  seq.  ;  John  vi. 

3  Mark  vii.  1-23,  viii.  11.  seq.  ;  John  vi.  59. 

4  Mark  viii.  22-26. 

5  Mark  viii.  27-30,  Messiah  of  the  Gospels,  p.  93. 


186       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

from  the  dead.1  This  is  speedily  followed  by  the 
Christophany  of  the  Transfiguration  to  confirm 
the  faith  of  the  chief  apostles.2  In  the  meantime 
the  other  disciples  try  in  vain  to  heal  the  de- 
moniac boy  ;  then  Jesus,  coming  down  from  the 
mount,  rebukes  them  for  their  lack  of  faith,  and 
heals  him.3 

Jesus  now  rapidly  returns  to  Capernaum  on 
His  way  to  the  last  Passover,  which  was  near.4 
Probably  here  the  incident  of  the  finding  of  a 
shekel  in  a  fish  occurred.5  The  disciples,  in 
view  of  the  impending  establishment  of  the 
kingdom,  dispute  as  to  their  relative  rank  in  it, 
and  are  rebuked  by  Jesus.6 

Jesus  journeys  to  Jerusalem  by  the  ordi- 
nary route  along  the  borders  of  Samaria  and 
Galilee.7  On  the  way  He  heals  the  ten  lepers. 
He  then  goes  on  to  make  a  farewell  visit  to 
Persea.  On  this  journey  the  dispute  as  to  divorce 
takes  place,  then  the  blessing  of  little  children, 
and  the  giving  of  counsels  of  perfection  to  the 
rich  young  man,  and  He  promises  reward  to  the 
faithful  disciples.8  Jesus  in  Peraea  is  rejoined  by 


1  Mark  viii.  31,  ix.  1,  30-32.  2  Mark  ix.  2-13. 

5  Mark  ix.  14-29.       4  Mark  ix.  30-33.       5  Matt.  xvii.  24-27. 

6  Mark  ix.  33-59.       7  Markx.  1;  Luke  xvii.  11;  Matt.xix.  1-2. 
8  Mark  x.  2-31  ;  Luke  xviii.  15-30  ;  Matt.  xix.  3  seq. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  187 

the  Seventy.  He  now  gives  several  additional 
logia.  He  also  makes  another  announcement  of 
His  impending  death  and  resurrection,1  and  re- 
bukes the  ambition  of  James  and  John.2  He 
then  leaves  Pereea  for  Jericho,  where  He  heals  a 
blind  man  and  visits  Zacchseus.8 

VI.  Passion  Week. 

Jesus  arrives  in  Bethany  six  days  before  Pass- 
over, late  on  Friday,  or  the  evening  which  began 
Saturday.  He  dines  at  the  house  of  Simon  on 
this  day,  is  anointed  by  Mary,  and  is  visited 
by  large  numbers  of  His  disciples  and  others. 
He  spends  the  night  at  Bethany.4 

On  Sunday,  accompanied  by  throngs  of  His 
disciples,  the  Twelve,  the  Seventy,  the  Galile- 
ans, the  Perasans,  the  believers  of  Jerusalem,  and 
a  great  multitude,  He  enters  Jerusalem  as  the 
Messiah.  He  returns  at  night  to  Bethany  with 
the  Twelve.6 

On  Monday  morning,  on  His  way  to  the 
temple,  He  curses  the  barren  fig-tree.  He  en- 
ters the  temple,  and  probably  owing  to  an  at- 


1  Mark  x.  32-34.  *  Mark  x.  35-45. 

8  Mark  x.  46  seq. ;  Luke  xviii.  35  seq. 

4  Mark  xiv.  3-9  ;  John  xii.  1-11. 

5  Mark  xi.  1-11  ;  John  xii.  12-19. 


188      NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

tempt  to  cheat  His  disciples  in  the  selecting  and 
purchase  of  a  Paschal  lamb,  His  indignation  is 
excited  against  the  traders,  and  He  casts  them 
out  of  the  temple.  He  returns  to  Bethany  for 
the  night.1 

On  Tuesday,  on  His  way  to  the  temple,  He 
passes  the  withered  fig-tree.  He  enters  into  the 
temple  and  finds  the  Pharisees  all  ready  to  chal- 
lenge His  authority.  After  a  sharp  contention 
with  them  He  retires  from  the  temple  to  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  and  gives  His  great  eschato- 
logical  discourse  to  His  disciples.2 

On  Wednesday  the  battle  with  the  Pharisees 
is  continued.  According  to  a  plan  devised  the 
previous  day,  the  Herodians  and  Sadducees  unite 
with  them  in  their  efforts  to  entrap  Jesus.  At 
last  they  are  silenced,  and  nothing  remains  but  to 
make  out  a  case  against  Him  and  have  Him  put 
to  death.  On  this  day,  two  days  before  the  Pass- 
over, the  Sanhedrim  resolve  on  His  death,  and 
soon  after  a  bargain  was  made  with  Judas  to  be- 
tray Him.3 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday  the  disciples  are 
instructed  to  prepare  for  the  Passover.4  Jesus, 

1  Mark  xi.  12-19;  John  ii.  13-22. 

2  Mark  xi.  20-xii.  12  ;  xiii. 

3  Mark  xii.  13  seq. ;  Luke  xxii.  1-6.  4  Mark  xiv.  12-16. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  189 

for  the  last  time,  visits  the  temple,  meets  with 
some  Greeks,  hears  the  theophanic  voice,  and  is 
finally  rejected  by  the  people.  He  departs 
from  the  temple  and  hides  Himself.1  At  night- 
fall, the  beginning  of  Friday,  Jesus  has  a  farewell 
supper  with  the  Twelve,  after  which  He  institutes 
the  Lord's  Supper,  and  gives  the  Twelve  instruc- 
tion in  a  long  discourse.2  After  supper,  later  in 
the  night,  He  goes  with  the  Eleven  to  Geth- 
semane  for  His  final  wrestle  and  prayer.  Here 
He  is  arrested  by  the  officers  of  the  Sanhedrim, 
Judas  betraying  Him  with  a  kiss.  He  is  before 
morning  tried  by  the  Sanhedrim,  and,  on  His 
affirming  His  Messiahship  under  oath,  is  con- 
demned to  death  for  blasphemy.  When  day 
arrives,  He  is  sent  to  Pilate,  with  a  petition  for 
His  death,  and  from  Pilate  to  Herod,  and  back 
again  to  Pilate,  who  seeks  to  avoid  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  death  of  an  innocent  man.  But 
Pilate  finally  yields  to  the  persistence  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  and,  after  scourging  Him,  sends  Him 
in  charge  of  Roman  soldiers  to  be  crucified  as 
King  of  the  Jews.  He  died  at  the  time  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  paschal  victims  in  the  temple,  as 
the  great  and  final  Paschal  Lamb.  He  was 


John  xii.  20  seq.  3  Mark  xiv.  17-25  ;  John  xiii.  seq. 


190       NEW  LIGHT  ON  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 

taken  down  in  haste  from  the  cross,  and  buried 
before  the  Sabbath  began.1 

Saturday  was  the  great  sabbath,  the  first  day 
of  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread,  during  which 
Jesus  remained  in  the  grave.2 

VII.   The  Resurrection. 

On  Sunday,  the  day  of  the  Omer  offering, 
Jesus  rose  from  the  dead  in  the  early  morning. 
He  appeared  first  to  Mary  Magdalene  and  other 
women,3  then  to  Peter,4  then  to  Cleopas  and  an- 
other disciple  in  the  afternoon,5  then  to  the  Ten 
in  the  upper  room  of  the  Last  Supper,  Thomas 
being  absent.6  These  four  appearances  on  the 
day  of  resurrection  were  followed  by  six  others. 
The  first  of  these  was  on  the  next  Sunday  in 
Jerusalem  to  the  Eleven,  Thomas  being  present.7 
The  remaining  appearances  may  all  be  arranged 
on  successive  Sundays,  and  probably  they  so  oc- 
curred, giving  thereby  to  Sunday  the  name  of 
the  Lord's  Day,  and  establishing  the  custom  of 


1  Mark  xiv.  26  seq.;  Matt.  xxvi.  30  seq.;  Luke  xxii.39  seq.; 
John  xviii.  1  seq. 

2  Matt,  xxvii.  62  ;  John  xix.  31. 

3  Mark  xvi.  1  seq.;  John  xx.  1  seq. 

*  Luke  xxiv.  34  ;  1  Cor.  xv.  4,  5.  6  Luke  xxiv.  13-35. 

6  John  xx.  19-25.  7  John  xx.  25-29. 


OUTLINE  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  191 

assembling  to  meet  the  Lord  on  that  day.  Four 
of  these  occurred  doubtless  in  Galilee  :  on  the 
third  Sunday,  the  appearance  to  the  Eleven  on 
a  mountain,1  on  the  fourth  Sunday,  the  appear- 
ance to  the  Seven  by  the  Sea,2  on  the  fifth  Sun- 
day, the  appearance  to  the  five  hundred  brethren 
at  once,  and  on  the  sixth  Sunday,  the  appearance 
to  James  the  Lord's  brother.3 

The  disciples  then  seem  to  have  gone  to  Jeru- 
salem, where,  on  the  seventh  Sunday,  the  Sun- 
day before  Pentecost,  Jesus  made  His  final 
appearance  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  gave  them 
their  final  Commission,  made  His  farewell  prayer, 
and  ascended  to  His  heavenly  throne  to  reign 
over  the  Church  and  the  world  as  the  Messiah, 
the  Son  of  the  Father,  the  second  person  of  the 
Holy  Trinity.4 


1  Matt,  xxviii.  16,  17.  2  John  xxi.  1-24. 

3  1  Cor.  xv.  6,  7. 

4  Mark  xvi.  19  ;  Luke  xxiv.  50,  51  ;  Acts  i.  6-11. 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Acts  of  the  Apostles,  112,  113. 
Adoration  of  Magi,  160. 
Advent  of  Kingdom,  65. 
Ambition  of  James  and  John,  65. 
Andrew,  10,  34,  47,  95,  149. 
Annunciations,  160  seq.,  168. 
Anointing  of  Jesus,  28,  98,  102. 
Apostle,  term,  34. 
Apostolic  Commission,  30  seq. 
Appendix  to  Mark,  114,  132. 
Aramaic,  126  seq. 
Archelaus,  170. 
Arrest    of    the    Baptist,    2    seq., 

20  seq. 
Ascension,   114,   116,   118,   119, 

191. 
Ave  Maria,  162. 

B 

Baptism,  123;    of  Jesus,  9,  10, 

16,  173. 
Beelzebub,  133. 
Beginning  of    Jesus'    Ministry, 

1  seq. 

Benedictus,  163. 
Bethany,  98,  101,  102. 
Bethlehem,  169. 
Bethsaida,  47,  48,  95. 
Betrayal,  108. 

o/  Jesus,  167  seq. 
,  135. 
Blessing  Children,  65. 


Ccesarea   Philippi,   48,   96,   97, 

149. 

Caiaphas,  87,  92. 
Cano,  10,  53,  150,  151. 
Canticles  of  Luke,  160  seq. 
Capernaum,  10,  11,  47,  88,  95, 

97. 

Centurion's  Servant,  23. 
Cleansing    of    Temple,    53,    99, 

103,  150. 
Cleopas,  117. 
Counsel  of  Perfection,  65. 
Crisis  in  Galilee,  184  seq. 
Crucifixion,  108. 


D 


Dalman,  126. 
Dalmanutha,  48. 
Decapolis,  47,  88,  95. 
Dedication    (feast    of),    44,    55, 

71,  84,  86,  92,  94,  153  seq., 

181. 

Delitzsch,  F.,  62. 
Dives  and  Lazarus,  73. 
Divorce,  65,  89. 
Dogmatic  use,  145  seq.,  156. 


Elizabeth,  17. 
Emmaus,  114,  115. 

into  Jerusalem,  98,  102. 


193 


194 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS 


Ephraim,  45,  88,  92,  94. 
Eschatological    Discourse,     106, 

133. 
Eusebius,  126. 


Fasting,  13,  19,  80. 
Feasts  of  Jesus,  50  seq. 
Feeding   of   Multitude,    47,    54, 

95,  133. 

Fig  tree,  70,  103  seq. 
Forty  days,  110  seq. 


Gadarenes,  29. 

Galilean  Ministry,  3  seq.,  28, 
175  seq. 

Genealogy,  159  seq. 

Gennesarct,  48,  95. 

Gethsemane,  108. 

Gospel,  of  John,  140  seq.;  o/ 
Lwfce,  136  seq.;  of  Mark,  129 
seq.;  of  Matthew,  134  seq. 

Gren/e«,  130. 


H 


Haggada,  171  seq. 

Hebrew    Sources,   126  seq.,   133 

seq.,  164. 

Herod,  20,  89,  108,  169  seq. 
Herodians,  79,  99,  105. 
Higher  Criticism,  142. 
Hillel,  79. 
Holy    Spirit,    Sin    against,    68, 

84,  133. 


Infancy  of  Jesus,  159  seq. 


James,  18,  45,  110,  115,  117. 

Jericho,  98. 

Jerusalem  Ministry,  43  seq. 

Jerusalem  Source,  135. 

Jews,  144. 

Jo/m,  toe  Apostle,  10,  34,  45, 181 . 

Jo/in,    toe    Baptist,   17   seq.,   21 

seq.,  25,  41,  172. 
Jonah,  sign  of,  68,  88. 
Joseph,  109,  168  seq. 
Judcean  Ministry,  179  seq. 
Judas,  59,  102. 

K 

Kingdom  of  God,  7. 
L 

Lazarus,   45,   86,   92,    98,    102, 

152. 

Leaven  of  Pharisees,  88. 
Logia  of  Matthew,  77,  125  seq. 
Lord's  Day,  118  seq. 
Lord's  Prayer,  67. 
Lord's  Supper,  57,  61,  122  seq. 
Lwfce,  113. 

M 

Magdala,  95. 

Magnificat,  163. 

Marfc,  112;  GospeZ  o/,  129  seq.; 

Original,  4;  Hebrew,  6;  Greek, 

6;  Chronological  order  of,  7,  8. 
Martha,  44. 
Afan/  Magdalene,  82,  110,  111, 

114,  117. 

Mary,  toe  Fir^m,  17,  44,  98. 
Matthew,  77, 87, 1 30, 181 ;  Call  of, 

12;  Gospel  of,  134  seq.;  Loyi'a 

o/,  77,  125  seq. 


INDEX    OF    SUBJECTS 


195 


Message  of  Baptist  to  Jesus,  21 

seq.,  41. 
Messiahship,  10,  47,  49,  86,  91 

seq.,  149  seq.,  151. 
Messianic  Ideals,  21,  121,  177. 
Miracles,  terms,  142. 


N 


Nathanael,  10,  34,  149. 
Nazareth,  11,  17,  46,  94,  170. 
Nicodemus,  53,  54,  109,  145,  151. 
Nunc  Dimittis,  163. 

O 

Omer  offering,  14,  15,  109. 


Papias,  125. 

Parables,  74  seq.,  136  seq.,  171; 

of  the  Kingdom,  29;  of  Salva- 
tion, 72,  137. 

Paschal  meal,  57  seq.,  60,  63. 
Passion  Week,  101  seq.,  187. 
Passover,  14,  15,  51  seq.,  54,  107, 

109. 

Paul,  110,  115,  116. 
Pentecost,  27,  52,  178. 
Percean  Ministry,  36,  43  seq.,  64 

seq.,  84,  97,  136  seq.,  179  seq. 
Peter,  10,  34,  77,  95,  96, 110,  111, 

113,  115,  117,  149. 
Pharisees,  79  seq.,  144. 
Pharisee  and  Publican,  65,  89. 
Philip,  10,  34,  47. 
Pilate,  99,  108,  109. 
Postresurrection  Discourses,   122 

seq.,  156. 

Prayer  of  Jesus,  121. 
Prediction  of  Jesus'  Resurrection, 

65,  96  seq.,  98. 


Pre-existence,  84,  86,  93,  155. 
Prologue  of  John,  148. 
Purification,  13,  19,  80. 
Purim,  52. 


Reland,  17. 

Resch,  6,  62,  126,  128,  130,  132, 

134. 

Resurrection,  110  seq.,  190. 
Robinson,  Edward,  17,  51,  52,  59. 


Sabbath,    controversies,    13,    14; 

cures,  22,  72,  81  seq.;  great,  58. 
Sadducees,  79,  99,  105. 
Samaria,  45,  88,  94,  151,  180. 
Sanhedrim,  53,  61,  63,  89,  91,  99, 

106,  108. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  23,  35, 

129. 
Seventy,  commission  of,  31  seq., 

181 ;  return  of,  97. 
Shammai,  79. 
Sidon,  46,  95. 
Son,  of  the  Father,  82,  93;  of  God, 

170;  of  Man,  111. 
Sunday,  118  seq. 
Sychar,  94. 
Synoptic  Gospels,  125  seq. 


Tabernacles  (feast  of),  16,  44,  83, 

153,  154,  173,  180. 
Tatian,  9,  45,  47,  52,  53,  151, 

157. 

Temptation  of  Jesus,  10,  18,  173. 
Theophany,  173. 


196 


INDEX    OF   SUBJECTS 


Thomas,  77,  87,  116,  130,  181. 

Tischcndorf,  14. 

Transfiguration,  96,  186. 

Twelve,  31  seq.,  110;  absence  of, 
40  seq.;  commission  of,  30,  31 
seq.,  120;  consecration  of,  23; 
return  of,  40  seq.,  95. 

Tyre,  46,  95. 


Virgin  Mary,  165  seq.,  168  seq. 


W 

Weiss,  /?.,  14,  128,  130,  135. 
Wendt,  142. 
Westcott  and  Hort,  14. 
Wisdom  of  Jesus,  129,  132,  171. 
Woes  against  Pharisees,  85,  129. 


Zacchceus,  98. 
Zacharias,  17. 


THE  WRITINGS  OF 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  BRIGGS,  D.D. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers 
153-157  Fifth  Avenue  NEW  YORK 


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Presbyterian.  A  Church  that  can  yield  such  books  has  large  possibilities."— New 
York  Evangelist. 

"It  is  second  in  importance  to  no  theological  work  which  has  appeared  in  this 
country  during  the  present  century."—  The  Critic. 

"His  arduous  labor  has  been  well  expended,  for  he  has  finally  produced  a  book 
which  will  give  great  pleasure  to  Christians  of  all  denominations The  pro- 
found learning  displayed  in  the  book  commends  it  to  the  purchase  of  all  clergymen 
who  wish  for  the  most  critical  and  exact  exposition  of  a  difficult  theme  ;  while  its 
earnestness  and  eloquence  will  win  for  it  a  place  in  the  library  of  every  devout  lay- 
man.1'—^. Y.  Journal  of  Commerce. 

"  It  is  rich  with  the  fruits  of  years  of  zealous  and  unwearied  study,  and  of  an  ample 
learning.  In  it  we  have  the  first  English  work  on  Messianic  Prophecy  which  stands 
on  the  level  of  modern  Biblical  studies,  It  is  one  of  the  most  important  and  valuable 
contributions  of  American  scholarships  to  those  studies.  It  is  always  more  than  in- 
structive :  it  is  spiritually  helpful.  We  commend  the  work  not  only  to  ministers,  but 
to  intelligent  laymen.1' — The  Independent. 

"On  the  pervading  and  multiform  character  of  this  promise,  see  a  recent,  as  well 
as  valuable  authority,  in  the  volume  of  Dr.  Briggs,  of  the  New  York  Theological 
Seminary,  on 'Messianic  Prophecy.'"— W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 

"Prof.  Briggs'  Messianic  Prophecy  is  a  most  excellent  book,  in  which  I  greatly 
rejoice."— Prof.  FRANZ  DELITZSCH. 

"  All  scholars  will  join  in  recognizing  its  singular  usefulness  as  a  text-book.  It  has 
been  much  wanted." — Rev.  CANON  CHEYNE. 

"It  is  a  book  that  will  be  consulted  and  prized  by  the  learned,  and  that  will  add  to 
the  author's  deservedly  high  reputation  for  scholarship.  Evidences  of  the  ability, 
learning  and  patient  research  of  the  author  are  apparent  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  volume,  while  the  style  is  remarkably  fine."— PhUa.  Presbyterian. 

"  His  new  book  on  Messianic  Phrophecy  is  a  worthy  companion  to  his  indispens- 
able text-book  on  Biblical  study  ....  What  is  most  of  all  required  to  insure  the 
future  of  Old  Testament  studies  in  this  country  is  that  those  who  teach  should  satisfy 
their  students  of  their  historic  connection  with  the  religion  and  theology  of  the  past. 
Prof.  Briggs  has  the  consciousness  of  such  a  connection  in  a  very  full  degree,  and 
yet  he  combines  this  with  a  frank  and  unreserved  adhesion  to  the  principles  of  modern 

criticisms He  has  produced  the  first  English  text-book  on  the  subject  of 

Mewianic  Prophecy  which  a  modern  teacher  can  use."—  The  London  Academy. 


PROFESSOR  BRIGGS'S  WRITINGS. 


The  Messiah  of  the  Gospels. 

By  CHARLES  A.  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  Edward  Robinson  Professor  of 
Biblical  Theology  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
Crown  8vo,  $2.00. 

The  Messiah  of  the  Apostles. 

By  CHARLES  A.  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  Edward  Robinson  Professor  ef 
Biblical  Theology  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
Crown  8vo,  $3.00. 

Prof.  BRIGGS  in  these  two  volumes  takes  up  the  ideas  presented  in 
the  author's  "  Messianic  Prophecy  of  the  Old  Testament,"  and  traces 
their  development  in  New  Testament  prophecy.  The  method  and 
scope  of  the  work  are  entirely  original,  and  it  is  full  of  fresh  state- 
ments of  the  doctrine  of  the  person  and  work  of  ChrLt  as  the  result 
of  the  new  point  of  view  that  is  taken. 

"  It  is  learned,  sound,  evangelical,  and  is  a  useful  contribution  to  the  Christological 
literature  of  the  day.11 — New  York  Tribune. 

"  It  requires  but  a  cursory  examination  of  this  book  to  discover  that  it  is  the  work 
of  a  profound  Biblical  scholar.  It  will  prove|a  valuable  aid  to  the  Biblical  student,  and 
is  well  worthy  of  a  place  in  his  library.  ^—Reformed  Church  Messenger. 

"  The  book,  as  to  far  the  larger  part  of  it,  is  one  of  the  best  and  most  precious  ever 
written  upon  the  person,  the  offices,  the  work  of  the  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man.  The 
author  has  the  Scriptures  thoroughly  at  command,  and  without  quotation-marks  re- 
peats the  very  words,  adding  passage  to  passage,  phrase  to  phrase,  with  splendid  and 
overwhelming  power.'1'1— The  Christian  Intelligencer. 

"Like  all  Dr.  Briggs'  books,  the  work  though  given  in  lucid  and  ringing  English 
has  depth  and  breadth  of  learning.1'—  Boston  Zion's  Herald. 

"  As  we  lay  the  book  down  we  have  a  renewed  sense  of  the  courage,  independence 
and  erudition  of  the  author.1' — The  Churchman. 

"  He  has  given  to  us  on  the  whole  a  noble  contribution  of  devout  scholarship  to- 
wards an  understanding  of  the  Christ  of  New  Testament  teaching.11— Richmond 
Religious  Herald. 

"  .  .  .  .  it  is  a  book  of  great  merit,  and  one  that  no  student  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament can  afford  not  to  read  with  candor  and  diligence.'1—  The  Examiner. 

"  The  whole  tone  of  the  discussion  is  adapted  to  impress  one  with  the  idea  that  the 
writer  is  a  sincere  lover  of  and  seeker  after  truth.  The  whole  volume  will  be  found 
very  helpful  to  any  diligent  student  of  the  Scriptures.11— Pittsburgh  Presbyterian 


"  The  work,  by  its  freedom  from  contentiousness  and  by  its  respect  for  other  learn- 
ed opinion,  claims  a  dignified  place  in  contributions  to  historical  theology.11—  The 
American  Historical  Review. 

"Dr.  Briggs  is  to  be  congratulated  on  having  brought  to  a  successful  termination 
this  truly  remarkable  series  of  volumes  on  one  of  the  most  important  themes  of  Bibli- 
cal study.  The  Christology  of  the  New  Testament  is  likely  to  wait  long  for  a  more 
competent  and  more  successful  expositor.11—  The  Christian  Register. 

"  Whoever  makes  a  faithful  study  of  this  book  will  put  himself  under  the  guidance 
of  an  admirable  teacher,  and  will  come  into  close  contact  with  the  living  Word  of  the 
divine  revelation.1' — The  Congregationalist. 


PROFESSOR  BRIG  OS'S  WRITINGS. 


The    Bible,    the    Church,   and    the 
Reason. 

The  Three  Great  Fountains  of  Divine  Authority.  By  CHARLES  A. 
BRIGGS,  D.D.,  Edward  Robinson  Professor  of  Biblical  Theology  in 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York.  Crown  8vo,  $1.75. 

•'  It  consists  of  lectures  delivered  at  different  times  since  the  recent  assault 
apon  him.  In  these  lectures  he  does  not  indicate  the  least  inclination  to  beat  a 
retreat,  cry  for  quarter,  or  even  secure  a  truce.  And  yet,  with  some  few  excep- 
tions, he  does  not  exhibit  personal  feeling,  nor  defend  himself  personally  from 
the  charges  made  against  him.  He  simply  elaborates  and  substantiates  the 
positions  in  his  inaugural  which  have  subjected  him  to  public  criticism  and  to  a 
possible  trial  for  heresy." — The  Christian  Union. 

"  The  problems  which  are  discussed  with  masterly  power  in  this  volume  are 
not  those  of  Presbyterianism,  or  of  Protestantism,  but  of  Christianity,  and, 
indeed,  of  all  Biblical  religion.  To  any  man  for  whom  the  question  of  God  and 
revelation  has  an  endlessly  fascinating  interest,  the  book  will  prove  suggestive  and 
stimulating.  We  cannot  see  why  even  the  Israelite  and  the  Roman  Catholic  should 
not  desire  to  taste — despite  the  traditions  of  synagogue  and  Mother  Church — 
this  latest  forbidden  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge."—  The  Literary  World. 

The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hex- 
ateuch. 

By  Prof.  CHARLES  A.  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  of  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary, New  York.  New  Revised  and  Enlarged  Edition.  Crown 
8vo,  $2.50. 

SUMMARY  OF  CONTENTS:  The  Testimony  of  Scripture— The  Traditional  Theories 
— The  Rise  of  Criticism— The  Documentary  and  Supplementary  Hypothesis — 
Date  of  Deuteronomy— Development  of  the  Codes— Witness  of  the  History— The 
Argument  from  Biblical  Theology  and  its  Results — Recent  Discussions. 

It  is  with  the  aim  of  contributing  to  a  better  understanding  and  higher  apprecia- 
tion of  the  documents  of  the  Bible  that  the  book  has  been  written,  which  is 
designed  for  the  general  public  rather  than  for  Hebrew  students,  and,  for  the  most 
part,  technical  material  been  put  into  the  Appendix,  which  constitutes  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  volume.  This  new  edition  is  the  result  of  a  thorough  revision 
of  the  entire  work,  and  contains  numerous  additions  of  importance.  It  is  also 
characterized  by  a  thorough  study  of  the  types  of  Hebrew  law  and  the  history  of 
Hebrew  legislation.  It  should  therefore  be  of  great  interest  to  the  legal  profession. 

"The  volume  before  us  gives  in  plain  language  Dr.  Brtggs's  belief.  No  minister 
can  afford  to  be  ignorant  of  the  subject,  or  of  Dr.  Briggs's  position."—  The  Chris- 
tian Enquirer. 


PROFESSOR  BRIOOSS  WRITINGS. 


Whither? 

A  Theological  Question  for  the  Times.  By  CHAKLES  AUGUSTUS 
BRIGGS,  D.D.,  Edward  Robinson  Professor  of  Biblical  Theology 
in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York.  Third  Edition. 
One  volume,  crown  8vo,  $1.75. 

"He  shows  that  genuine  Christianity  has  nothing  co  lose,  but  much  to  gain,  by  un- 
fettered thought  and  by  the  ripest  modern  scholarship  ;  that  the  doctrines  which  pro- 
gressive theology  threatens  are  no  essential  part  of  the  historic  faith,  but  rather  out- 
worn garments,  woven  with  warp  and  woof  of  tradition  and  speculation  ;  that  being 
hung  upon  the  noble  form  of  Christianity,  have  obscured  its  real  proportions,  and 
that '  the  higher  criticism  '  of  which  timid  and  unscholarly  souls  are  so  much  afraid, 
is  really  making  the  Bible  more  manifestly  the  book  of  God,  by  relieving  it  from  the 
false  interpretations  of  men." — The  Press,  Philadelphia. 

"  The  book  is  a  strong  one.  It  is  packed  with  weighty  matter.  Its  reach  is  larger 
than  any  of  the  author's  other  works,  though  its  compass  is  smaller.  It  contains  only 
300  pages,  yet  it  is  a  critical  treatise  on  Westminster  and  modern  theology,  and  also 
on  church  life  and  Christian  unity.  It  is  written  in  nervous,  virile  English  that  holds 
attention.  It  has  unusual  grasp  and  force.  The  title  and  the  chapter  headings  sug- 
gest compression:  'Whither?'  'Drifting,'  'Orthodoxy,'  'Changes,'  'Shifting,' 
'Excesses,'  'Failures,'  'Departures,'  'Perplexities,'  'Barriers,'  'Thither.'  There 
is  a  whole  history  in  some  of  these  words,  and  a  whole  sermon  in  others." — The 
Critic,  New  York. 

"At  the  same  time  it  is  irenic  both  in  tone  and  tendency.  It  is  noble  from 
beginning  to  end,  though  the  author  may  possibly  place  unnecessary  emphasis  on 
the  organic  unity  of  the  different  denominations  of  Christendom  as  the  condition 
precedent  for  a  true  catholic  unity.  There  is  not  a  touch  or  smell  of  rationalism  or 
rationalistic  speculation  in  the  book,  and  freely  as  the  author  deals  with  his  oppo- 
nents, it  is  an  honest  freedom,  which  will  promote  good  feeling  even  amid  debate."— 
The  Independent. 

American  Presby terianism : 

Its  Origin  and  Early  History,  together  with  an  Appendix  of  Let- 
ters and  Documents,  many  of  which  have  recently  been  discovered. 
By  CHARLES  A.  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  Edward  Robinson  Professor  of 
Biblical  Theology  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York, 
i  volume,  crown  8vo,  with  Maps.  $3.00. 

"  Tl.e  Presbyterian  Church  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  enthusiasm  and  antiquar- 
ian research  of  Professor  Briggs.  He  seems  to  have  seized  the  foremost  place  among 
them,  and  his  vigorous,  skilful,  and  comprehensive  researches  put  all  Protestant 
Christians,  and  especially  Congregationalists,  under  obligation  to  him." — Boston 
Congregationalist. 

"This  is  an  admirable  and  exhaustive  work,  full  of  vigorous  thinking,  clear  and 
careful  statement,  incisive  and  judicious  criticism,  minute  yet  comprehensive  research. 
It  is  such  a  book  as  only  a  man  with  a  gift  for  historical  inquiry  and  an  enthusiasm 
for  the  history  and  principles  of  his  Church  could  have  produced.  It  represents  an 
amazing  amount  of  labor.  Dr.  Briggs  seems  to  have  searched  every  available  source, 
British  and  American,  for  printed  or  written  documents  bearing  on  his  subjects,  and 
he  has  met  with  wonderful  success.  He  has  made  many  important  discoveries,  illus- 
trative of  the  Puritan  men  and  period,  useful  to  himself,  but  certain  also  to  be  helpful 
to  all  future  inquiries  in  this  field."— British  Quarterly  Review. 

CHAKLES  SCBZBSTER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 
153-157  Fiftli  Avenue,  New  Yorlt. 


I 


- 


APR  24  192 


1    1940 
5  - 1966  Q  9 


YC  40800 


